The improvement continued for the Varsity Cheer Squad under second year Coach Shari Russell after their season opening event on Saturday, Dec. 12.
The girls managed to take fourth out of seven teams at the CCCAM Scholarship Invite, scoring 618.724, a 50 point improvement over last year’s first meet score. ‘Seeing as we scored a 569 (last year), this was a definite improvement,? said Russell.
Allen Park won the event and Brandon finished in second.
After first rounds of solid scores, the girls slipped up in the third round. They received a 16 point penalty in round three after a back handspring collapse and problems with their pyramid. The result took them from finishing less than a half-point behind third place to finish in a solid fourth.
Coach Russell said that the girls had an excellent round one performance and was very pleased with the performance in the second round as well. She said that the weakest round was the third round, but after finishing the round, she was confident that her team knew the material and could move on to mastering the material.
‘We feel that as though we had a good start and are even more confident following this competition that we have the ability to achieve our goal of placing at least third in the FML and achieving a score over 700 points,? said Coach Russell. ‘The team left the competition in good spirits and came to practice Monday morning with a positive attitude, ready to work and even more desire to win.?
The next competition for the girls is the Oxford Mardi Gras Mambo Invite on Jan. 9.