1/7/2008
9:57:00 AM

Belding
takes second and CM finishes third at New Year Cheer

John
Raffel

Sports Editor

STANTON - Belding's cheerleaders walked away from
Saturday's Central Montcalm New Year Cheer with a second-place trophy.

The Redskins scored 619.3 points to finish second among five teams in
Division 3. Ovid-Elsie was first with 666.1 points while Central
Montcalm placed third with 587.6.

Ithaca won
Division 4 with 592.9 points.

Each team performed three rounds. Round 1 featured
compulsories, Round 2 was highlighted with moves in unison and Round
3 featured stunts.

It marked the season's first meet for both Belding and Central
Montcalm.

Belding's squad consisted of Alexis Hornbrook,
Courtney Meredith, Sheree Nieto, Brianna Stevens,
Amie Venneman, Rachel Warner and Natalie Wempa.

"We're happy to be over 600 points," said Redskin Coach Stacy Venneman. "On Round 3 we hit every stunt. We
worked on Round 2 and 3 first in the preseason. We didn't start on Round 1
until the middle of December. The girls were confident in themselves."

"I thought we did good for our first
meet," Stevens said.

"For our first meet I thought it was great," Amie Venneman said. "We were sticking to our
stunts."

"Our stunts were really good," Stevens agreed.

Meanwhile, Central Montcalm made its debut
under first-year coach Lori Williams.

"I'm happy. They worked hard and are doing an excellent job," she
said. "There's things to improve on. We'll
focus on being cleaner and staying tighter.

"Round 1 was our best round today," Williams said. "We have
to work on Round 3 and make it more solid.

The Green Hornet squad consisted of Cheyenne Birman,
Ashley DesJardins, Aleasha
Hardy, Nicki Loomis, Erin Otto, Jill Parker, Kat
Reed and Robyn VanHouten.

"I thought we did all right," said DesJardins.
"Sticking our stunts was a key, working together on them."

"We're half seniors and half freshmen," said Parker. "We've
made a lot of progress."

"I'd like to get to 600 points," Reed said. "We'd like to
score a little more than 10 additional points."

Belding will compete at Comstock
Park on Saturday
while Central's next meet will be the Cedar Springs Invitational that same
day.