Comstock Park repeats cheer title

Thursday,
March 03, 2005

By Kelly
Hill

The Grand Rapids Press

COMSTOCK PARK
-- Winning its third consecutive championnship was not the primary goal of the Comstock Park competitive cheer team when the
Panthers hosted the O-K Conference Tier 3 meet Saturday.

While the Panthers obviously
wanted to win their third conference meet in a row, their first objective was
to perform soundly while avoiding injury, so as to prepare themselves for this
weekend's regional meet at Coopersville.

"Our main goal today
was to set ourselves up for next week," Comstock Park
cheer coach Kathy Felty said, moments after Saturday's conference meet.
"The regional is next week and we wanted to get ready for that."

Coopersville
places second

The Panthers prepared for
Saturday's regional by scoring a three-round total of 709.5 points and winning
their third straight conference meet and conference championship. The Panthers,
who beat second-place Coopersville by 59 points, posted respective marks of
192.5, 213.5 and 303.5 in the conference meet's three rounds.

While the Coopersville Broncos
finished second in Tier 3 action Saturday, the Sparta Spartans finished second
to Holland Christian in the Tier 3 conference meet which also was contested at Comstock Park on Saturday.

While the Maroons won their
second consecutive conference meet, with 702.5 points, the Spartans were
second, with 670. Sparta
posted scores of 184, 193.5 and 292.5 in the conference meet's three rounds of
competition.

"Our biggest
competition at the regional will probably be Sparta and Chippewa Hills," Felty said.

Works through illness,
injury

"We are going to have
to perform our best in all three rounds. At this time of the year every team
seems to have some kind of sickness or injury, but we have been able to work
through them.

"At the regional it is
going to be a matter of whoever has the best day."

The Panthers obviously had
the best day at Saturday's conference meet. Their second-round score of 213.5
was 29 points better than the next best score in the round, posted by the
Wolverines of Godwin Heights.

"In Round 2 we do
aerials, which no one else in the conference does," Felty said. "We
have a little more strength in that round than most of the other teams."

The Kenowa Hills competitive
cheer team also participated in the Tier 2 conference meet Saturday at Comstock Park, finishing third.

© 2005 Grand Rapids Press. Used
with permission