Serving Greenville,
Belding and Montcalm County,
Michigan since 1854.

Thursday,
January 27, 2005

Belding cheerleaders fifth at conference meet

By John Raffel
- Daily News sports editor

BELDING -- They hadn't cheered in three weeks,
but the Belding Redskins weren't worried about being rusty Wednesday night.

Instead, they placed fifth among 11 teams competing in an O-K
Rainbow Conference competitive cheer meet on their own homecourt.

The Redskins had 173 points in Round 1 (variations) and 170.5
points and 273 in the next two rounds, respectively, to post a score of
616.5.

Round 2 involved compulsory moves and Round 3 featured stunts
and mounts.

Comstock Park finished first while Coopersville was second, Godwin Heights third and Allendale fourth.

"I thought my girls did really well," said Belding
Coach Jeanne Brown. "Round 3 was our best one tonight. They were able to
stick it out."

Because of two weather-related cancellations, the Redskins
haven't competed since the Central Montcalm meet three weeks ago. Their next meet will be a nonleague invitational Monday at Comstock Park.
The next Rainbow Conference meet will be Feb. 9 at a site to be announced
later.

"There's always room for improvement," Brown said.
"We feel we can place very high in the conference."

Cheerleaders for Belding included Amber Allison, Jenny Brady,
Heather Ferman, Ashley Galas, Dannielle
Garlick, Tiann Hattis, Sarah Heffron, Ashlyn Mathewson, Rachel McGee,
Monika Nieto, Cassie Rector and Emily Venneman.

"We did our best," Venneman
said. "We had good improvement tonight, getting over 600 points."

"I think we did all right," Ferman
said. "There's things we can work on like
timing and teamwork."

Finishing below Belding were Rogers, Hamilton, Calvin Christian,
Kelloggsville, Hopkins and Wyoming Lee.

"All the teams did very well," Brown said.

"I'm impressed with the things I've seen on the mat."