It's a 'do or die' weekend for competitive cheer teams

BY DAN STICKRADT

STAFF WRITER

One can never assume
anything. It's when a team reaches that point of assumption that expectations
aren't met and upsets occur.

"You can't assume
anything in cheerleading," said veteran Rochester competitive cheer coach Susan
Wood, whose team is the top-ranked squad in Class A and the defending state
champions. "A lot of teams might think we do, but we don't. We can't
afford to or we'll get beat by somebody."

Rochester has won 12 straight
MHSAA regional championships in the sport with 10 state titles, and enter Saturday's depth-laden, 4 p.m. regional at Lake Orion
as the favorites. But the field is loaded with quality teams.

Troy Athens
and Lake Orion have both logged time in the Class A top-10 this season, and
Rochester Stoney Creek edged Lake
Orion by two points for
the runner-up slot at last year's regional. Athens
was fourth last year and Troy fifth at the
regional.

The top two teams from
each regional advance to the state finals March 11 at the Delta Plex in Grand
Rapids.

"It's no secret
that Rochester's the favorite, but after that's it's going to be very, very
close," predicted Lake Orion coach Nancy DeAvila,
whose program won eight straight regional titles from 1996-2003 but hasn't
qualified since. "We've beat Athens
twice this year and they've beaten us three times. Stoney Creek beat us once
this year, but I don't think they've beaten Athens. Then there's Troy, and they're not bad team either.

"I think this is
one of the top two regions in the state. Region (No. 1) and Region (No. 3)
are tough," DeAvila continued. "Over on
the west side, three of the top four teams in the state are in the same
region and one of them isn't going to make the state meet. In our region,
it's the same thing. They'll be two to three really good teams that don't
make it.

"I think it's
going to go down to which team makes the fewest mistakes. A couple of points
could decide it again this year."

Rochester, which has 20
first-year varsity performers on its team and returned only nine athletes
form its state-title squad, isn't approaching the regional as a lock.

"No way, there's
way too much excitement being regionals," she
said. "We don't have that much experience this year with 20 new girls.
Thank God for the nine that did come back. We've been beating teams lately,
but barely. We haven't been beating people by a lot this year and we did get
beat earlier in the season."

Oxford first-year coach Alaina
Stockley has watched her young team mature as the
season has ventured along, and hopes, realistically, to finish in the top
half of the 16-school field. Oxford
is far from being a favorite, but is a program on the rise.

"Rochester's an automatic
and those other OAA schools are all very good," said Stockley.
"We hope to be in the top six, maybe top seven, and beat the other
schools from our league. We've been behind (Lapeer West) a few times this
season and we've hoping to beat them this time.

"Watching Rochester is a lot of
fun, and I wish them well because they are always a nice group of
girls," said Stockley. "Rochester is the type of program that
everybody wants to have."

Originally published March 2, 2006