Grandville competitive cheer lives up to top billing
again

Sunday,
January 16, 2005By Dean Holzwarth

The Grand Rapids Press

HOLLAND -- The Grandville and West Ottawa competitive cheer teams have seen a lot of
each other in the past eight days.

The two teams have met
three times during that span, and the Bulldogs continue to have the upper
hand over their closest rivals.

Grandville, ranked No. 1
in the state in Class A, topped the field at Saturday's West Ottawa
Invitational, while the host and third-ranked Panthers settled for runner-up
honors for the third consecutive meet.

West
Ottawa
also placed second to Grandville at last weekend's Grandville Invitational
and at Monday's first O-K Rainbow Conference Tier 1 meet.

"We knew with it
being here at their invitational that West Ottawa
wanted to look great in front of their home crowd," Grandville coach
Julie Smith-Boyd said. "It's been a good rivalry and it pushes each of
us to be a little better and that's good. They looked really good today, and
I thought my girls were awesome as well."

Grandville won its fourth
invitational of the season and third in a row with a three-round score of
714.5.

West Ottawa was second at
696.5, and Mona
Shores was third at
596.

Smith-Boyd said the
victory was a relief after the team made a few adjustments and faced
adversity Friday night.

"We had a rough week
because we had our conference meet on Monday and after that the girls wanted
to change some things," she said.

"So we started to
change some things and then we kind of ran out of time and then we had one
girl fall last night, but they came together and were awesome."

Senior Ashley Lane, who performs in rounds two and
three, suffered a fall at practice before the meet, but still competed with a
bruised rib.

"She's a trooper and
she really pulled through for everybody today," Smith-Boyd said.
"It can be a little unsettling when you have one of your main girls out,
but I think it showed some guts on her part and it showed the younger girls
that she was OK and she was going to do it for the team."

West Ottawa trailed
Grandville by 7.5 points entering the final round, but couldn't make up any
ground after closing with a routine that didn't live up to expectations.

"I was happy with
our performance, but they were a little disappointed in their third round
because that had been our strongest round," West
Ottawa coach Kelli Polinskey said.

"They lost a little
confidence early on and it continued throughout the whole cheer. They didn't
end as strong as they would have liked, but overall I thought we made some
good gains this week and improved in round two."

In Class B, Wyoming Park
(610.5) placed second behind champion St.
Joseph (629).

© 2005 Grand Rapids Press. Used
with permission

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