Allendale cheer team in fine form

Thursday,
January 20, 2005By Dean Holzwarth

The Grand Rapids Press

ALLENDALE -- The
difference in points might have been few, but it gave Allendale competitive
coach Kendra DeRose optimism for the rest of the
season.

The Falcons competed
Saturday at the Grandville Invitational for the first time and finished with
a three-round score of 557.5.

Four days later, they
hosted the Allendale Invitational and tallied a team score of 577.

"I was happy with
the improvement from the first to the second competition," DeRose said. "We improved our score by 20 points and
being so young I think we should continue to improve on that as we get more
comfortable on the mat and at competitions."

DeRose, who's assisted by Mallory O'Neal
and Alecia Niewiadomski,
has seven back from last year's squad that placed runner-up to Comstock Park
in Tier 3 of the O-K Rainbow Conference.

But the Falcons are still
young with a sophomore-laden team and only one senior.

The returners
include juniors Mo Jackson and Samm Bristol and
sophomores Jordan Miller, Alex Beck, Pam Yocca,
Brittany DeWindt and Megan Higgins. Junior Arika Williams is a transfer from Hudsonville and will be
allowed to compete in the second semester.

DeRose said the experience her
sophomores gained when they were freshmen should bode well for future
success.

"It helped a great
deal to have them compete last year," she said. "The sophomores
have a lot of talent and they're a good group of girls. As long they stick
with it, we should continue to get better in the next two years."

Allendale's opening
competitions brought a pair of top-five finishes. They placed runner-up to Wyoming Park in Division 2 at Grandville and
were fourth on their home mat.

"I've been pleased
with our results and we've been much stronger in round two than we were at
the beginning of the year," DeRose said.
"That was our weak round, but we've scored well the last two weeks so
I've been happy with that.

"Our round one has
been consistent and we're making some changes to our round three because we made
a lot of mistakes on Wednesday and it hurt us."

The Falcons opened
conference competition on Wednesday at Godwin Heights
and DeRose is hoping to stay near the top in the
race for the title.

"I still think we
can contend and we're going to work hard toward doing that," DeRose said. "Comstock Park
is tough again and I don't know if we can beat them, but we're hoping to hold
off some of the other teams."

Wednesday's meet was the
second in a busy week for the Falcons. They also competed Monday at Comstock Park and will appear at the Jenison
Invitational on Saturday.

© 2005 Grand Rapids Press. Used
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