Stevens,
Belding cheer team look to get healthy

Jeff
Chaney

Monday, December 15, 2008

The Grand Rapids Press

The flu
bug has hit the Belding competitive cheer team pretty hard.

"We
haven't had a practice with everybody there because everybody has been
sick," said Brianna Stevens, a four-year varsity competitor for Belding.
"It's been hard to do things. If you don't have somebody there you don't
know what you are doing. This is a true team sport. We have tried to work
around not everybody being here. It has been hard, but we'll be all
right."

Belding coach Stacy Venneman hasn't been able to
escape the flu either.

"We have had a flu bug, and I have had to send girls home throwing up
and have had other girls not show up because they don't feel good," Venneman said. "Last week I got sick because of
this, so it hasn't been very good.

"We'll plow right through this. They did come back healthy, and had a
practice and you wouldn't have even known we had a bug, so the team is
resilient."

Venneman says Stevens has been key
to help the team stay together so far, and knows she will continue to lead as
the season moves on.

"She was one the few that wasn't sick," Venneman
said. "She is very important, she is our main fire. She's like another
coach."

Now that the squad is finally starting to get healthy, Stevens says it is
time to get down to business to fine tune this year's three rounds.

"It will be a lot easier to have everybody here because we can get
through all the rounds," Steven said.

"Now that we have moved back up to the O-K Blue, all the team are good so it will be hard to say. We have potential, we just have to keep working hard."

And stay healthy.

"We have had to buckle down," Venneman
said. "We still have routines to put in, and the illnesses didn't help,
but we'll be all right."

Belding

·
Coach: Stacy Venneman, fourth year

·
Conference: O-K Blue

·
2007-08: Third in O-K Silver

·
Top returnees: Seniors Brianna Stevens,, Amie Venneman
and Sheree Nieto and sophomore Alex Hornbrook

·
Newcomer: Senior Miranda Beltz, who took
last season off

·
Outlook: Belding moves back to the O-K Blue, which is a tough
conference for competitive cheer.

·
Coach's comment: "This team that I have comes every day giving
100 percent. We have had a lot of illness."

·
Key date: Jan. 7, first O-K Blue meet at West Catholic