Carlson Raises Bar with Perfect Run
March 1, 2014
By Dean Holzwarth
Special to Second Half
GRAND RAPIDS – Gibraltar Carlson senior Sarah Tritt was sporting three shiny MHSAA championship rings on her left hand following Saturday’s competitive cheer Division 2 Final.
She soon will be adding another one to the collection.
“Yes, we are going to be designing our fourth one,” Tritt said after the Marauders captured their fourth consecutive Division 2 crown at The DeltaPlex.
Gibraltar Carlson tallied a three-round score of 780.10, while Dearborn Divine Child placed runner-up for the fourth year in a row with a 772.24 total. Allen Park finished third at 769.06.
The Marauders continued their string of dominance in Division 2. They have won the Finals six of the last eight years and were runners-up in 2010.
“It never gets old,” Gibraltar Carlson coach Danielle Jokela said. “I think that these kids did something that was close to impossible – they won four state titles in a row.”
In fact, the Downriver League champions never lost a competition this season – an impressive feat in itself, especially considering the league includes four MHSAA Finals qualifiers and three-time reigning Division 1 champion Southgate Anderson.
“This is the first season that I’ve ever coached an undefeated team where they have won every single competition,” Jokela said. “They fought hard, they did everything I asked them to do, and today they became state champions.”
Tritt joined teammates Alexis Kopchia and Maelyn Russo as the only seniors to compete on the mat all four years at the Finals.
“This feeling is indescribable,” Tritt said. “It’s like nothing I could ever imagine, and I could not ask for anything more. We were able to overcome so much this year and we pushed through it all and still were able to end on top every time.”
Senior Kiah Manthei agreed with her coach – winning championships never gets old.
“No, it feels better every time,” Manthei said. “This year’s team is the best that we’ve had. There was no drama and we’re all really close. We just knew today that if we performed how we practiced, that it was ours.”
Gibraltar Carlson charged to an early advantage with a pair of dominating rounds.
It posted high scores in Round 1 (234.9) and Round 2 (230.1).
“Round 1 has been our saving grace this year and is amazing, and we have very talented girls in Round 2 who have beautiful skills,” Jokela said. “Getting those high scores definitely boosted our confidence and kept us ahead. That’s what won the state title for us.”
The Marauders held a nearly eight-point cushion entering the final round.
“It’s always good to be a little ahead after Rounds 1 and 2,” Tritt said. “It makes it so much easier going into Round 3.”
Gibraltar Carlson registered a 315.1 in Round 3, which was the third highest among the eight teams.
“We nailed the first two and Round 3 was good enough to seal the deal,” Jokela said.
Dearborn Divine Child, which won the Detroit Catholic League title, trailed Gibraltar Carlson by four points after Round 1 despite scoring a solid 230.2 to open the Final.
It had another superb Round 2 (226.84), and capped the day with the second-highest Round 3 score (315.2).
“It was their goal today to hit three perfect rounds, and really, at the end of the day, we don’t have any control over anyone else or what the judges give us or anybody else,” Falcons coach Amber Genevich said. “They haven’t hit three perfect rounds all season and they did that today. We would’ve loved to finish first, but we’re proud because not many teams here can say that they hit solid rounds, and we did.”
While the frustration of placing runner-up again still lingered, Genevich said this year’s team peaked at the end of the year.
“You get a little tired of being second best, but this year’s second place feels a little different than maybe last year,” she said. “We weren’t a second place team all season. We were third place or fourth place, so we had to work from the bottom and really climb our way to the top.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Gibraltar Carlson athletes look into the crowd during Saturday’s Round 2. (Middle) Dearborn Divine Child performs its Round 3 routine. (Click for action and team photos from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Stevenson Returns, Leaves as D1 Champion
March 2, 2018
By Dean Holzwarth
Special for Second Half
GRAND RAPIDS -- Sterling Heights Stevenson competitive cheer coach Brianna Verdoodt clutched the hardware in her hands as tightly as she could.
“I’m sleeping with this tonight,” Verdoodt declared after her team made school history Friday at the MHSAA Division 1 Final at the DeltaPlex.
The top-ranked Titans concluded a dominating season by winning the program’s first state championship.
Stevenson tallied a three-round total of 793.22 and outlasted runner-up Rochester Adams, which finished at 790.82.
“I could not have written a better story of how this season has gone for us,” Verdoodt said. “We lost only one senior last year, so it was first time we had literally every single girl coming back. So the year started out totally different.
“We could be tough, but still love on them, and we kept pushing just as hard because we knew that we wanted this.”
The Titans placed second to Rochester a year ago and third in 2016. Last season’s was their first runner-up finish at the Finals since 2011.
“We knew we wanted a little bit more this year,” Verdoodt said. “Last year was unexpected with nine freshmen, and making it to the state finals was huge – and runner-up was just like icing on the cake.”
Stevenson capped off an incredible season that included a Macomb Area Conference Red championship and winning all but one competition.
“This is probably the best feeling of my life,” Stevenson senior Anna Long said. “I’ve been working four years to win a state championship, and this is just the best day of my life. We were all confident that we had a shot because this is the best this team has ever been, so we knew it could be done.”
The Titans drew motivation from last year’s finish, and that experience paid off for the veteran group.
“We were so close with a young team and now we’re here, state champs,” Titans senior Carolina Poliss said. “It’s crazy to be the first because we’ve been striving for years for this, and we’re doing something Stevenson has never done before.”
Stevenson trailed Adams by two tenths of a point after Round 1, but jumped into the lead with a solid Round 2 that delivered a high score of 232.72.
All that was left was Round 3, and the Titans punctuated the win with a stirring effort that combined flexibility, strength and agility.
It resulted in another high score, 322.20.
“I was a flyer in high school and I’m crazy about flexibility and things that set us apart from other people,” Verdoodt said. “We have a couple different things in our Round 3 that look odd to a normal cheer person.
“Round 3 is just a fun one, and we hold them to really high standards for all positions so they can go out and do a performance like that under pressure.”
Long said there was a sense of calm that overtook the team before its final round.
“We’re usually nervous, but we were all really confident this time and it was a different confidence than normal,” she said. “We were all really focused, and I feel like we all knew that all we had to do was hit Round 3 and show we wanted it with heart. Then we knew we could win, because our other rounds were so strong.”
Adams’ runner-up finish was its first in more than two decades. The Highlanders placed second to Rochester in Class A in 1996.
“It feels like first; it really does,” Adams coach Brooke Miller said. “They’ve worked so hard for this, and they’ve definitely fought for everything they’ve done today.”
The Highlanders, who finished fifth last season in their first trip to the Finals in 20 years, had 10 seniors leading the way.
“They really wanted it, and they did everything they could possibly do to get it,” Miller said. “We had nothing to lose tonight, and we wanted to go out there and have fun and let these 10 seniors have the best day yet.”
Two-time reigning champion Rochester took third (789.70), while Grand Blanc and Rochester Hills Stoney Creek rounded out the top five.
PHOTOS: (Top) Sterling Heights Stevenson hoists its first Finals championship trophy in competitive cheer. (Middle) Rochester Adams celebrates its runner-up finish.