‘Cheerleading has changed so much'

by Lew Horn

story updated January 31. 2008 11:07AM

- Evening News photos by AMANDA
LARAE LARKIN The Bedford cheer squad works on lifting and holding their
teammates in the air during a recent practice.

"It's not your mom's cheerleading squad." That's
the way cheer team adviser Amanda Blaida describes
her competitive cheer team. "Cheerleading has changed so much even from
when I was in school," said Blaida, a 2004 Bedford graduate.

Although the girls cheer at all home basketball games,
there isn't an official sideline team this winter. Sideline cheerleading is
the traditional concept of girls firing-up the crowd for a basketball game.
Instead the emphasis is on competitive cheer where the team competes against
other schools for trophies and team championships like other sports.

On Saturday the Mules will host their own nine-team
invitational at the high school gym. Blaida expects
Livonia Churchill to be their biggest competition. "They beat us last
year and they have a really strong squad again this season," she said.
"They have an outstanding program and I think our girls will be going
after them out of a sense of pride."

The Mules have a young squad, but numbers are up and they
do have solid leadership from four returning seniors. Kateyln
Smith, Jerrica Bush, Kara Stark and Brittney Barton
lead a squad of 23 girls.

"We are young but talented," said Blaida. "The girls look up to the seniors, but we
have three freshmen who are also very skilled. You wouldn't think they were
just freshmen when you watch them perform."

In their opening competition at the Novi Invitational on
Jan 12, the girls placed second out of eight teams behind Gibraltar Carlson.
"We had an injury to one of our flyers just before the invitational, and
we had to make some last minute changes," said Blaida.
"That hurt our consistency a bit. We were a little rough, but we've had
two weeks to work on improvements."

Everyone is healthy for Saturday, but the coach plans to
reduce the number of girls competing in each round. In competitive cheer
teams can field as few as four, or as many as 16 in each round. "We want
to get our best girls on the floor so we'll probably drop from 16 to14,"
said Blaida.

Judges score competitive cheer on three rounds of
competition. In the required round, which lasts a minute and a half, judges
evaluate traditional choreographed cheerleading skills. Jumps, traditional
motions and routines are preformed. Like all rounds, consistency is
important.

In round two, also a minute and a half, the girls perform
the compulsory routines. Each team must choose five skills that are awarded a
degree of difficulty. In these precision drills, all girls must be able to
perform the chosen skills and the judges evaluate them accordingly.

Round three is the stunting round, which lasts for two and
a half minutes. Blaida said this is the most
exciting and important round. "Stunting in the most difficult round to
prepare for," she said. "It involves the most gymnastic skill, and
it's the one crowds enjoy the most. This is where the squads have a chance to
get creative. It's also the most important round because more points are
awarded here. You can have a big lead going into stunts and still lose it
all."

Seniors Kara Stark and Jerrica
Bush have been involved in cheerleading for four years. Both miss traveling
to the away games for basketball, but admit the extra time allows them to
work on the more difficult routines. "It's probably better because we
have more time to focus, but I do have fun at the games," said Stark.
Both are also looking forward to their first home invitational.

"I can't wait," Bush said. "We have been
training hard all week, and if we get everything in sync, we should do
well." The seniors see round three as crucial. "If we get our
timing down, I think we have a good chance to win it all," Stark said.

As for the future, Blaida, who
is assisted by Gina Smith, Morgan Sopko and Ashley Alcock, sees good things. "We've got a JV squad
participating in an invitational this weekend and we started a program at the
junior high. We've got a young but talented squad, but from here on out it's one competition after another until Regional."