D2 Preview: Hopefuls Chase Carlson
March 6, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
No MHSAA Final in any sport has produced as consistent a series of finishes as the Division 2 Competitive Cheer Final over the last four seasons.
Gibraltar Carlson on Saturday is chasing a fifth straight title. Dearborn Divine Child has finished runner-up the last four seasons and will pursue a first championship – as will five others – when competition begins at 10 a.m.
Following are glances at all eight Division 2 teams competing at the Grand Rapids DeltaPlex. All four Finals will be broadcast live on MHSAA.tv and viewable on a subscription basis.
ALLEN PARK
Rank: No. 3.
League finish: Third in Downriver League.
Coach: Julie Goodwin, 10th season.
Championship history: Division 2 champion 2010, runner-up 2008.
Top score: 771.5.
Team composition: 25 total (11 seniors, five juniors, four sophomores, five freshmen).
Outlook: Allen Park moved up to third last season after two straight fourth places and could be poised to take another step. The Jaguars finished third at both their District and Regional but first or second at all but one event during the regular season – and that event was the championship meet for one of the strongest cheer leagues in the state. Senior Courtney Felt made the all-state first team last season and seniors Alicia Buhnerkemper and Katelyn Szwed earned honorable mentions.
DEARBORN DIVINE CHILD
Rank: No. 4.
League finish: First in Detroit Catholic League.
Coach: Amber Genevich, 10th season.
Championship history: Division 2 runner-up 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Top score: 771.9 at the District.
Team composition: 20 total (six seniors, three juniors, nine sophomores, two freshmen).
Outlook: Divine Child continued to push Gibraltar Carlson for the championship last season, falling fewer than eight points from a first title. The Falcons came within six of Carlson in finishing second at both the District and Regional, and their best scores for each round all rank among the top five posted in Division 2 this winter. Seniors Kaelah O’Brien, Laura Kastler and Hanna Korpics made the all-state second team last season, and senior Maggie Marion earned an honorable mention.
DEWITT
Rank: No. 2.
League finish: First in Capital Area Activities Conference Red.
Coach: Candace Heskitt, seventh season.
Championship history: Division 2 runner-up 2007.
Top score: 781.30 at the District.
Team composition: 23 total (four seniors, 12 juniors, three sophomores, four freshmen).
Outlook: The Panthers have won four straight Regional championships and finished fifth at the last two Division 2 Finals – but look like a strong possibility to move up. DeWitt also won 10 of 13 events this season, with two seconds and a third place as well, and its top overall score is the best in Division 2. Senior Katlyn Sweeney and junior Abigail Wassom both made the all-state second team last season.
GIBRALTAR CARLSON
Rank: No. 1.
League finish: First in Downriver League.
Coach: Ayrn Ziesmer, first season.
Championship history: Seven MHSAA titles (most recent 2014), four runner-up finishes.
Top score: 779.04.
Team composition: 19 total (two seniors, three juniors, three sophomores, 11 freshmen).
Outlook: New coach and more than half the team new to high school – same results so far. Carlson is seeking its fifth straight title and sixth in seven seasons now under Ziesmer, a former assistant for reigning Division 1 champion Southgate Anderson. Carlson has posted the top Round 2 (229.22) and Round 3 (318.6) scores in Division 2 this season and the top average overall score (768.164) by more than six points. Junior Tahlia Hamilton made the all-state second team last season and junior Angelique Voden earned honorable mention.
GRAND RAPIDS KENOWA HILLS
Rank: No. 6.
League finish: Second in Ottawa-Kent Conference Black.
Coach: Chris Hudson, fifth season.
Championship history: Seeking first MHSAA Finals top-two finish.
Top score: 760.68.
Team composition: 19 total (two seniors, seven juniors, four sophomores, six freshmen).
Outlook: Kenowa Hills is back at the Finals after missing the last two seasons and despite seeing league and District title streaks end – the Knights still finished a strong second at both. Kenowa Hills has posted scores that rank among the top 10 in the division this season for every round and has been especially strong in Round 2, where its best of 316.6 ranks fourth. Junior Bri Hardy made the all-region second team last season.
MIDDLEVILLE THORNAPPLE KELLOGG
Rank: No. 7.
League finish: First in O-K Gold.
Coach: Abby Kanitz, eighth season.
Championship history: Seeking first MHSAA Finals top-two finish.
Top score: 775.42.
Team composition: 22 total (three seniors, four juniors, nine sophomores, six freshmen).
Outlook: Thornapple Kellogg is back for its second straight Final and after winning its fifth straight league title. The Trojans finished sixth in Division 2 last year and are coming off their second-highest score of the season, 762.32, to finish second at their Regional. Thornapple Kellogg’s best Round 2 (228.62) and Round 3 (318.1) and overall scores all rank third in Division 2 this winter. Senior Katie Bowling made the all-state second team and senior Taylor Tyndall earned an honorable mention in 2014.
ORTONVILLE BRANDON
Rank: No. 8.
League finish: First in Flint Metro League.
Coach: Brooke Sharrard, second season.
Championship history: Seeking first MHSAA Finals top-two finish.
Top score: 767.42.
Team composition: 19 total (four seniors, six juniors, six sophomores, three freshmen).
Outlook: The Blackhawks also are back at the Finals for the first time since 2012, when they finished third in Division 2, and after finishing fourth at a Regional behind the top-three ranked teams overall. They’ve won league and District titles both seasons under Sharrard. Brandon’s best Round 1 score of 233.4 ranks sixth in Division 2 this season, and it has posted its top two overall scores over its last five competitions. Junior Sierra Coughlin made the all-region first team last season.
ST. JOSEPH
Rank: Unranked.
League finish: First in Southwestern Michigan Athletic Conference.
Coach: Jenna Ruddell, fourth season.
Championship history: Seeking first MHSAA Finals top-two finish.
Top score: 763.68 at the District.
Team composition: 24 total (six seniors, five juniors, five sophomores, eight freshmen).
Outlook: The Bears continue to rise under Ruddell, making their third Finals in a row after moving up three spots to finish fourth in 2014. The team finished first at seven events this season and posted its top two scores over the last two events – its best Round 3 score, 314.2, ranks seventh in Division 2 this season. Senior Bailey Hedman made the all-state first team last season, and senior Toria Beckum earned an honorable mention.
PHOTO: Dearborn Divine Child finished second in Division 2 last winter for the fourth straight, but will pursue its first title Saturday.
'Small but Mighty' Gobles Aims for Finals
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
December 17, 2019
GOBLES — With just seven girls on her team, “we’re small but we’re mighty,” Gobles competitive cheer coach Nicole Durr said discussing her Tigers’ prospects this winter.
Lack of numbers have not hurt them too much in the past, with the team qualifying for Regional competition the last five years in a row.
However, this is the smallest roster in Durr’s four years as Gobles head coach.
“We had 12 my first year with a big senior group,” she said. “Ten the next year and nine last year.”
No matter the numbers, the goal is still the same: Compete at the MHSAA Competitive Cheer Finals, this season March 6-7 at the Grand Rapids Delta Plex.
Gobles began competition at the Paw Paw CCCAM Scholarship Meet on Saturday, taking first in Division 4 and finishing fourth overall among 22 teams. The team began preparing the second week in November, and conference competition begins in January.
“Cheerleading is a very mental sport,” Durr said. “It’s a very long season, so it takes a mentally strong team.
“It takes good chemistry because it’s a lot different sport than other sports. There’s a lot of trust involved, especially in our stunting round.”
Winning formula
Trust is what Brielynn Lisowski has in her teammates.
Lisowski, one of three seniors on the team with Lauren Krieger and Annika Brunner, is the flyer.
“It is scary,” Lisowski said. “It’s a lot of work, but when I do my job, it’s not too hard. I do trust them, for sure.”
The other four girls are sophomores – Maecy Bills, Alexis Diamond, Ella Miller and Jocelynn Wassenaar – and three competed on the varsity team last year.
With such a small team, Durr said the girls automatically begin competition by losing 10 points.
“In Round 2, our mandate for our division is six (girls),” she said. “However, there also is a multiplier depending on the difficulty of the skills you’re doing.
“Our best bet is to put five girls on, take a 10-point penalty, but our score is going to be high enough that if we did six girls with lower skills, we wouldn’t score as high as we will with five.”
Two of those five are the other two seniors, both bases, who have worked together the last three years – a bonus, both say.
“It’s hard but I feel that’s what I’ve been doing since middle school …,” Brunner said. “Lauren and I, we have the dynamic down pretty good.
“We’re used to each other and we know how each other works.”
Krieger has been cheering since second grade and said it is important that the two bases have chemistry.
“Being with each other for so many years, especially not only in cheer but also being friends, we more or less understand how each other works,” she said. “So if a stunt isn’t going up, we know that we aren’t just going to drop it; we’re going to fight to keep it up there.
“Working with each other so long, we know each other’s quirks. If we see a certain facial expression, then we know what to expect.”
Success and wisdom
Durr brings a wealth of experience to the team. She began her coaching career 29 years ago and has served during the entirety of the MHSAA’s sponsorship of the sport, which began in 1994 and continues to provide one of the few “team” competition formats in cheer/spirit in the nation.
Durr began coaching after her first year of college and led the Otsego team for 16 years, before also coaching at Allegan and Plainwell and then landing at Gobles.
“It takes a lot of work (to cheer),” she said. “I think now, more people are starting to understand that cheerleading is a sport and it’s not just girls running around trying to be cute.
“They actually come in and they work really hard and they deal with injury and they deal with everything any other athlete deals with. It’s a lot of work, and these girls do a really good job.”
There are also pressures that come with the sport.
“I feel like there’s a lot of pressure mentally that there isn’t in other sports because we have to memorize rounds,” Brunner said.
“In other sports, you build up your points. In cheer, you start at 100 and go down from there. For me, my biggest fear is to mess up.”
The girls can tell if they are “messing up” by how animated their coach is during the routine.
“For me, I had a coach that was always very animated and I kinda fed off that,” Durr said.
“I think the girls know sometimes if it’s not going well and I’m just kind of standing back there, they’re like ‘Oh gosh, this can’t be good.’”
Athletes are well-versed in what’s expected on the way to joining the high school team. Durr’s program benefits from a good feeder system in the middle school. Coach Tiffany Burnell is an Otsego grad who cheered for Durr.
“She knows how I like things,” Durr said. “She’s been with me since she was a sixth grader.”
In addition, the high school’s volunteer assistant coach, Jessi Andrina, is a nurse practitioner at DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids and structures some of the conditioning.
“We did Alma College’s workout last year for conditioning,” Krieger said. “Jess has us do a lot of circuit workouts while we’re doing jump drills or tumbling, which really helps build our strength.”
The athletes do an hour of conditioning before working on their routines.
Most also have participated in sideline cheer during the football season. But as they get older, a lot have jobs and cannot commit to two seasons, Durr said.
“In a perfect world, I would have 25 girls on my sideline team and 25 girls on my competitive cheer team,” Durr said.
“I think we need a bigger school,” she added, laughing.
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Gobles’ seven-member competitive cheer team participated in its first meet this season Saturday at Paw Paw. (Middle) Clockwise from top left: Seniors Annika Brunner and Lauren Krieger, coach Nicole Durr and senior Brielyn Lisowski. (Below) Gobles is aiming to take the next tournament step and reach the MHSAA Finals. (Photos by Pam Shebest.)