Oilers cheerleaders
finish second in Division 2

By Drew
Ellis

Saturday, March 8, 2009

GRAND
RAPIDS – Kristi LaFleur is no
stranger to the state finals, and neither is her Mt. Pleasant competitive cheer team.

On Saturday, the Oilers made their sixth state finals appearance in seven
years, but one thing that had eluded LaFleur and Mt. Pleasant all this time was a finals trophy
to call its own.

That all came to an end on Saturday as the Oilers placed second in the
Division 2 state championship with a 786.0888 total, finishing runner-up to
defending state champion, Gibraltar Carlson, which won the title with a score
of 807.1184

“This is really unbelievable and I really am at a loss for
words,” LaFleur said of Mt. Pleasant, who
hadn’t finished higher than fourth in the state finals prior to
Saturday. “I think we had a goal of a state championship, but we knew
that would be difficult. To place second in the state, we really
couldn’t be happier.”

The
Oilers entered the final round in third place, trailing Gibraltar Carlson by
20 points and Allen Park by eight points. Gibraltar
Carlson opened the third round and had a strong performance that seemed to
seal up the championship before the competition was even over, but second
place was far from decided.

Allen
Park stood in the Oilers’ way of some hardware but didn’t have
a crisp third round, scoring just a 305.4, which opened the door for Mt. Pleasant.

As the Oilers performed for the last time, LaFleur
was ecstatic. Mt. Pleasant put forth the second best final
round of the competition with a 321.9 and as it finished its routine, the
team celebrated with great enthusiasm off the mat while the crowd gave a
boisterous ovation in appreciation for what the Oilers had just done.

“These girls put together a third round that left me in awe,” LaFleur said. “It was the best round three that I
have ever seen and I had a lot of people tell me that. It felt great to see
these girls end the season on such a strong note after all their hard work.
What we did was pretty remarkable.”

The first round saw Mt. Pleasant put itself in fourth
place with a 225.4. Gibralter Carlson set the pace,
putting up a 233.2 to top the rest of the field by five points.

The Oilers seemed slightly disappointed following their round two performance,
but still scored a 238.7888, which was fourth best of the Division and pushed
Mt. Pleasant into third place overall with a 464.1888 total.

Gibralter Carlson maintained its hold on first
place with a 484.6184 total, leading the rest of the competition by 12 points
or more, with Allen Park taking second with a 472.3568
total.

“Our round two was probably the weakest round of the three we
had,” LaFleur said. “It wasn’t
quite where we wanted it to be, but it got us in position to where we wanted
to go.”

With the first cheer state trophy under her belt, LaFleur
wants to keep the momentum going for seasons to come.

“We are going to enjoy this for a while but we want this program to
keep moving forward and we have set the bar a little higher today and hopefully
we can set it even higher next year.”