By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

Fresh off of their second league meet, Lake Orion High School’s varsity cheer squad is gaining momentum leading up to the second half of their season.

So far, the ladies have had four meets and have faired well especially in their two league meets.

“We placed higher in the league at our first two league meets than we had the last couple of years. We got two 3rd places,” said head coach Nicole Hills. “The first league meet we beat Stoney Creek who is the defending state champion and last night (Jan. 15) we beat Rochester who is the winningest team in competitive cheer. So that was really good for our team. Good confidence builder.”

Lake Orion again finds itself in the OAA Red division along with several impressive teams.

For the Dragons, competing in the OAA Red makes for a very competitive season. Currently, the Red division houses some of the most competitive teams in the state including Stoney Creek, Rochester and Rochester Adams.

“We’re in the OAA Red which is by far the hardest in the state,” Hills said. “Rochester and Stoney are both multiple time state champions. Adams has been state runner up for the past two years. Troy Athens, Lake Orion, all just really storied programs so it’s fun, it’s competitive, it helps us stay good.”

While having such intense competition in their league, the Dragons have their eyes trained on the state competition.

“The biggest goal is making it back to the state championship,” Hills said. “We’ve gone 19 times so our cheer, we say, ‘we’re going for number 20’ and that’s the biggest goal. The second is to, for us, because we didn’t make it out of our region. We’re just trying to place in the top four in all of our major meets because the top four is that point you want to hit because the top four in your region advance to finals.”

Going into the season knowing that the competition will be top-notch means that not only do the girls need to be on their game, but the program has to evolve with the sport itself. With the main goal being to return to the the state championships, these are important changes.

“We did a lot of things differently during our summer, for competitive cheer it’s pretty much the same cheer team during sideline season so we got a strength program, we hired a stunt coach during the fall and we just changed up our fall season slightly from what we did to prepare for competitive,” said Hills. “For competitive season, we really just kind of try to push the limit as much as we can with our choreography, that’s a really big thing and we changed up our meet schedule from what we’ve done in the past. We’re going to try to compete against the teams in our region more than we usually do. We’re in the west side region which is different for us so we try to compete against them more.”

Looking forward into the season, the ladies are now currently gearing up for the 25th annual Lake Orion Invite on Feb. 1.

“The Lake Orion (meet) used to be really huge and now it’s a lot smaller than it’s been but it’s filled with really talented teams so it’ll be a good one, it’s always fun to compete at home,” said Hills. “I think it’s kind of like the turning point of our season where we really start to put the full force ahead into the tournament.”

The Dragons will get the opportunity to fight for their spot in the state championship at the district tournament in exactly one month on Feb. 22 at Grand Blanc High School.