Comstock Park pleased with 2nd place

Sunday,
March 09, 2008

By
Steve Ungrey

The Grand Rapids Press

WALKER -- Comstock Park
coach Kathy Felty fielded one of the youngest competitive
cheer teams she'd ever had in 18 years of coaching the sport, with her squad
of 19 featuring just three seniors and one junior.

The Panthers may have
been young, but their finish was history-making for the program.

On Saturday at the
DeltaPlex, Comstock
Park placed second with
a team score of 735.648 points in the Division 3 state finals, coming in
behind Remus Chippewa Hills (764.408) despite a
strong performance. The Panthers, who finished fourth a year ago, had never
taken second before at a state final. Their previous best finish of third
place came in 1995.

"It's
nice to have medals and trophies finally. It was a great way to end the
season," Felty said. "I just think we've
gotten stronger and stronger throughout the season and we ended up taking
second by a pretty good margin. We knew we had a good shot at coming in and
placing in the top three today."

For seniors like Rachel Egner, Sarah Coble and Erica Yeomans,
it was a great way to end their high school cheer careers.

"I couldn't be any
happier with this finish," Coble said. "We didn't know what to
expect with this group because it was so young."

"I was so excited I
was crying on the mats out there," Yeomans
added. "I wanted to at least collect myself before it was over."

Remus coach Jenna Ruddell,
whose team won its second state title in three seasons, expected Comstock Park to be among the top squads
challenging the Warriors during the meet.

Her advice was simple.

"We'd been to the
DeltaPlex before this in February, and we spent a lot of time thinking what
did it feel like, what it did sound like. I wanted to bring it down to it
being just another meet without taking all the excitement out of it," Ruddell said.

GR Christian happy
with finish

A pair of first-time
qualifiers for the Division 2 state finals finished in the middle of the pack
at Saturday's competition.

Grand Rapids Christian
coach Jacquie DeJonge has guided programs for 28
years, but she hadn't reached a state finals in 14
years with the Eagles.

That changed Saturday
when Christian took fifth out of 10 teams. Christian scored 718.215 points,
followed in sixth by Kenowa Hills (713.92).

"The girls are so
thrilled," DeJonge said. "They couldn't
be more pleased. This was icing on the cake to finish in the top five. We had
talked about this being the first and only year that we could come here and
have no regrets. We'd never been here so there was no pressure. Every year
after this we'll be looking at this first team and seeing how we can go up
from here."

Kenowa Hills pleased

Kenowa Hills had won a
conference championship in 2006 before this year's regional title, which was
the first in school history.

"It feels good to
come here," Kenowa Hills coach Brenda Looks said. "I'm proud of the
girls. They went out with all they had and it was wonderful to be here. It
only took us five minutes to get here so we didn't have to worry about a long
trip. Now we have some new goals we want to reach for next year and we just
lose one senior (Kamara Schmidt) so we should have
a strong team."

Gibraltar Carlson won the
meet with a score of 777.28, clinching its first state title since a Class B
crown in 1995.