Eagles'
goal: Defend title

By Dan Strawser

DAILY PRESS & ARGUS

File photo by MARK A. DULL

Hartland, which won the regular-season KVC competitive
cheer title, will try to repeat as champion at Saturday's league meet at Milford.

The bar has been set.

Heading into
Saturday's Kensington Valley Conference cheer meet at Milford High School,
everyone is chasing Hartland, which is still undefeated in conference action.

"It's easier to
chase than to lead," Hartland coach Paula Cunningham said.

Leading the conference standings hasn't put any more pressure on
the Eagles according to Cunningham, but her team is still feeling the heat.

"I think we add
the pressure ourselves," Cunningham said. "We want to go out and
have three flawless rounds and be the best team at the end of the day."

The key, Cunningham
said, is concentrating on yourself and not the competition.

"We're not
focused on the other teams, we're focused on ourselves," she said.

The Eagles' lead
hasn't deterred the rest of the KVC, though.

"We're all going
in it to win it," Brighton coach Kim
Klaus said. "We'll have to have a great day. Hartland is good and it
wants to keep the KVC title."

Brighton has only one loss in
the KVC this season — against the defending champion Hartland.

"We beat them in
rounds one and two, but they beat us in round three," said Klaus of
their meeting earlier this year. "We had a really rough round 3. They
beat us by 20 points or more and we were only up seven going into the final
round."

The final round is the
stunt round.

Howell comes into the
meet in fourth place with three losses.

"We're looking to
move up," Howell assistant coach Raeanne Bumas said. "We're looking for third (place) at
least. First would be awesome, but we're looking to go up a couple of
spots."

All seven KVC teams
compete against one another, allowing for significant changes in the
standings depending on how each team performs.

"It basically
comes down to who has the better day," Klaus said.

Hartland has made
wholesale changes to its routines in preparation for the meet.

"We've made
changes in all three rounds," Cunningham said. "We've made
significant changes in round three. We've been practicing and every day we're
doing drills over and over for all three rounds, fine-tuning things and
trying to prepare to give our best performance.

"Every year, I
try to outdo last year. I make it harder, more challenging. We're trying to
beat ourselves, I guess."

Klaus said her squad
has been working on improving its third-round performance.

"We're trying to
get our third round more solid," Klaus said. "We're hoping Saturday
it will be solid. We've changed things here and there to make it better. It's
just a matter of the girls sticking it."

The Highlanders
haven't made changes to their routines, they've just
been hammering them home.

"We're just
drilling more and trying to work out the little things," Bumas said.

Saturday's meet is set
to begin at 10 a.m.

Originally
published February 17, 2006