Huskies top
700 points

Sunday,
January 13, 2008

BY DAVID DREW

Special to the Gazette

RICHLAND -- In day full of cheering,
clapping, jumping, leaping and flipping, it was Portage Northern
High School's
competitive cheer team that asserted its spirited acrobatic dominance over
the rest of the field Saturday at the Gull Lake Invitational.

Not only did Portage Northern win
Division 2, but the Huskies scored higher than the winners of the other three
divisions with a total score of 701.18 points.

The 23 teams were split into four
divisions, each team competing in three rounds to amass a final point total.

``I'm very happy,'' P-Northern
coach Heather Prentice said. ``They've been pushing for 700 points. It's a
goal of ours, and I'm happy we got it today.''

The Huskies cheered through early
adversity to hit 700 points for the first time this season.

``We had an injury earlier in the
warm-up room. The girls work well together and we pushed through it,''
Prentice said.

Gull Lake finished third in Division 2 on
its home floor with a total score of 670.133.

``We did good,''
Gull Lake co-captain Chantel
Einhardt said. ``We improved a lot of things today.
Our Round 1 score was much better today and that was good. Every meet there's
a small goal we try to achieve and today we did it.''

However, it was in Round 3 that
the Blue Devils put together their best performance statistically with a
score of 286.

Co-captain Liz Sweet was also
happy with how things went for the Blue Devils.

``We continued to improve today,''
she said. ``We lost to some tough competition, but we did good.''

Coach Angie Brown agreed.

``We're getting better every
meet,'' she said. ``We did really well today and made a lot of
improvements.''

Brown said the Blue Devils'
ultimate goal this season is to win the Wolverine Conference this year.

Mattawan also competed in Division
2 and finished fourth with a total score of 631.84.

Allegan finished the competition
in third place in Division 3 with a total score of 634.274. Coach Nicole Laster was happy with how the Tigers performed.

``Finishing third means a lot to
us,'' she said. ``Each girl sets her own goals, and they all work hard.''

Laster said the Tigers have made much
improvement so far but still have work to do.

``We're about halfway there right
now. We have three-hour practices and we're always trying to get better.''

The two other area teams in
Division 3 were Delton, which finished in fourth place with a total score of
604.75, and Paw Paw, finishing the day with 584.992
points.

Portage Central was one of only
three teams competing in Division 1 and finished in third place with a score
of 527.398.

Other area teams in Division 2
included Vicksburg,
with a total score of 609.732, Sturgis with a total score of 526.004 and Loy
Norrix with a score of 373.494.

In Division 4 there were four area
teams that competed for a trophy including Colon, which finished second with 671.47
points, Schoolcraft with 572.923 total points, Gobles with 642.188 points and
Bronson with 436.358 points.