Competitive
cheer squad seeing success

CLIO

THE
CLIO MESSENGER

Sunday,
February 24, 2008

By
Greg Chrapek

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• 810.766.6184

In only its third year as a team,
the Clio competitive cheerleading squad is enjoying its most successful
season.

The Clio squad is currently in
fourth place in the Metro League. The Mustangs also have been successful in a
number of invitationals.

Clio has taken first at the Maple Valley,
Harrison and the Genesee Area invitationals so far. Clio also placed second at the Brandon meet and third at Owosso.

"The
girls are doing real good this year," said
first-year coach Margret Herriman. "They have
been working real hard and it's a good group of girls to work with. They are
fighting to stay up in the Metro standings and will be looking to make it to
the state tournament at the regionals."

The Mustangs are in their final
league meet Wednesday at Linden
and then travel to DeWitt on Saturday to compete at the regional. A total of
16 teams will compete at the regional meet with the top two teams heading to
the state meet.

This year's 19-member team is led
by seven seniors who have been with the team all three years: Stephanie Bois,
Erin Conley, Jaime Herriman, Ashley Hetzer, Kaitlin LeDuc, Brittany
Papineau and Nicole Vallaire.

"We have definitely improved
a lot since we first started," Vallaire said.
"All of the seniors have been together since our sophomore year when we
first got into sideline cheer. My freshman year I was on the sideline cheer
team but then everyone had to switch and we became a competitive cheer team
our sophomore year. I really like the competitive cheer format even better
and I know a lot of the other girls do to. It is more about skills."

The Mustangs have a number of
skills that have led to their success.

"I would say that our
stunting is our strongest point," Herriman
said. "We have some strong stunters on the
team. We also have four girls who tumble real well."

The team also has seven juniors
including Alysha Connelly, Kelsey Dimick, Ashlyn Dotson, Jenna Hippensteel, Megan McCullough, Jennifer Triplett and
Kelsey Veek. Sophomores on the team include Lindsay
Abbott, Shayne Harrington, Chelsea Layman and Ashley Schuette
while Morgan Hodge is the lone freshman.

Clio also has a combined
freshman/junior varsity team.

Herriman is assisted in coaching the team
by LeeAnn Zietz, who coached
the team the first two seasons.

Although the team is primarily a
competitive team, they also find the time to cheer at some home basketball
teams. The primary focus of the team, however, is competing at meets and the
squad is looking for a strong finish.

"We've been having a lot fun
this year," Vallaire said. "We've been in
the top three or four for most of the season and in the past we've been fifth
or sixth in the league. We want to keep it up and finish strong."