Grandville cheerleaders victorious in O-K Red

Grant Lofdahl | Advance Newspapers, January 13, 2009

The Grandville competitive cheer team claimed first
place at last week's O-K Red pre-season conference tournament at Jenison. - (ADVANCE photo by TOM FIRME)

JENISON - If the O-K Red preseason
tournament results are any indication, the level of competition and parity in
the league have reached a new high.

The top-six teams, led by
first-place Grandville, all finished within 41 points of each other at last
Wednesday's pre-conference meet at Jenison High School. The Bulldogs, long one of Michigan's powerhouse cheer programs, held
off a third-round rally by the host Wildcats to win the tourney with a score
of 789.48 to Jenison's 777.84.

Grandville head coach
Julie Smith-Boyd said her team improved by leaps and bounds in its third
round performance, even though Jenison outpaced the Bulldogs 311 to 305.4 in the final round
scores.

"Our rounds one and
two are really strong - our round two score is up there, probably the best
round two we've ever had," said Smith-Boyd, whose team struggled with
the third round before the holiday break. "We have a lot of new people
in round three, and it's just a matter of getting confidence.

"We're just happy we
hit that round three; you don't want to lose that many points after having a
big lead. You want to maintain it. I'm not going to say it's been easy; it's
been a struggle, but I can see the potential now."

The Bulldogs racked up
232.1 points in the first round to take a slight lead over East Kentwood. In round two, Grandville put
forth a strong routine and again had the best score at 251.98, for a total of
484.08. However, East Kentwood (479.05), Rockford (472.67) and Jenison (466.84) were all within striking
distance.

"We have a really
good round one and they really love it," said Smith-Boyd. "They
have a lot of passion when they do it, and I think that comes through. In
round two, they're really athletic and that's been our strength. That's what
we're going to try to emphasize - to just do what we can do, do it really
well and do it clean, and that'll take care of it."

The Bulldogs had the
second-highest score in round three behind Jenison, as Hudsonville shook things up
with a 299.5 mark that was third-best. For Jenison, coach Wendy Kenney said she and
the team were very pleased with the second-place overall finish.

"It's very
exciting," said Kenney. "We were just hoping to improve our scores
from week to week. I'm absolutely thrilled, we
improved all three rounds today. That's what we came in hoping to do.

"We normally have
been known to come out with a strong round three, and this year with a
smaller and younger team we weren't sure what our round three was going to
end up like. We capitalized on the things that they're good at - they're
really good tumblers and they have great twisting stunts."

Kenney said instead of
being a hindrance, having a relatively-small squad may help her team this
year in the Red because of the closeness of the group and the talent they
possess.

"We have one of the
smallest teams here with only 18 team members. We put 16 on the floor in all
three rounds - we were able to do that starting this week, because we had one
girl with an injury, and now we're able to step it up to 16 in all three
rounds. They're more close-knit; they're a family team and they like each
other."

East Kentwood came in third overall with 773.05
points, followed by Rockford in fourth with 755.27. West Ottawa (749.91) and Hudsonville (748.53)
were not far behind, while Grand Haven and Muskegon rounded out the conference
scoring.

"It's not going to
be easy, and anyone can do it," said Smith-Boyd of her team's hopes of
another Red championship. "Jenison did really well last year; they always have a
really good round three. We know that they're going to
perform real well."