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Paw Paw Cheer Prepping to Shine Again
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
November 13, 2017
PAW PAW — When Madison Boven was in middle school, her world came crashing down.
Both of her parents were involved in drugs and Children’s Protective Services took Boven and her three sisters away, giving control to their great-grandmother.
They have lived with her the last six or seven years – and these last few, the Paw Paw senior has been embraced by another family as well.
“I felt very alone and didn’t know what to do, so I found cheer,” Boven said. “At first I was like, ‘OK, this is a new thing I can look forward to.’
“Everything was happening so dramatically with my parents gone. I grasped onto (competitive) cheer and I loved it. I had a team and a place to go to.”
Competitive cheer coach Stefanie Miller added: “Cheer took her from a dark place back into the light. It’s taught her how to come back from the darkness.”
Boven is working to get back to training with her teammates over the next month as she’s started this season on crutches. Competitive cheer practice began across the state Nov. 6, with the first meets able to take place Nov. 20.
She should return to the mat by the second week of December as the Redskins try to make it back to the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals on March 3 in Grand Rapids. They finished seventh in Division 3 last season.
Expectations are high as they prepare. Paw Paw also finished second at its Regional and dominated its District last season. Mahadiah Blakely is back after earning an all-state honorable mention, while Joscelin Stewart, Ciarra DeLaRonde, Claudia Muessig, Mia Labelle and Claire Atkinson earned some level of all-region honors and Kaitlyn Ciot and Ashton Glenn added all-district recognition.
Miller has built a program that has made the MHSAA Finals the last seven seasons, placing as high as sixth in Division 3. Taking that trip to the DeltaPlex every March has become something of a tradition, just like the all-night start of the season for the Paw Paw cheer family she's helped foster.
Locked in and focused
Boven was with her teammates as they participated in their 24-hour lock-in at the school from 1 p.m Saturday to 1 p.m. Sunday.
Miller, who has coached the Redskins for nine years after nine at Battle Creek Central, started the lock-in seven or eight years ago.
“We have so much to get done and so little time,” she said. “Our first competition is in less than 30 days and it’s a (Wolverine) Conference meet as well.
“This 24 hours is all about getting all of our material taught without the disruption of ‘I have to take a test tomorrow’ or whatever. Sometimes we don’t get it all done, but we get 90 percent of it done, and that takes a load off myself and off them as well.”
The girls take sleeping bags, pillows and air mattresses and sleep on the mats in the gym.
“They become one with the mat,” the bubbly Miller laughed, “because this is our court.”
And the lock-in is just as key for bonding her team as it is to preparing the Redskins for competition.
“At lock-in is where we make our routines so we’re all involved. We don’t get any outside help, just our coach and our team,” Boven said. “It makes the rounds even more special because we make them.”
The girls also do team bonding through games and crafts.
“Last year, we made a board with a motivational quote on it,” Boven said. “I have each one plastered on my wall.”
None of the girls have gymnastics backgrounds, so Miller learned the basics so she can teach the team.
“We just have to work extra hard,” she said. “We have gone the last nine years without a tumbling coach. The majority of schools have a tumbling coach, someone who comes in or those kids go to a gym and get tumbling that way.
“Our kids, we tried that but it just didn’t work because it wasn’t for everyone. Not everyone can afford that.”
Miller also watches videos of the top high school performances because “If you want to be the best, you have to study the best,” she said.
Boven’s injury had nothing to do with cheer, but it is not the first time she has watched from the sidelines. Now, as then, she’s using the time positively and with her team in mind.
“I broke my thumb in January and sat out half a season,” she said. “It helped me a lot to watch my team. It helped me grow insight in how to be a leader whether I’m (performing) with the team or not.”
One team, one sound
This year, Paw Paw has 22 athletes on varsity, 16 returning, but no junior varsity team – although Miller hopes to have one next year.
With a maximum of 16 on the floor at one time, Miller will have substitutions to plug in when needed.
“It’s hard to run a team of just 16 when you’re using every single kid,” she said. “This is winter, and the flu runs rampant.
“We’ve had several years with what we call the ‘Paw Paw Crud’ that ran through here. We had kids sick all the time. It’s easier on the kids to be able to sub in and out rather than change the material.”
Miller’s enthusiasm shines though as she talks about her team, and that translates to complete animation during competition.
“When we’re performing, if we’re killing it, she dances,” Boven said. “If we’re not, she still lets us know we’re doing fine; she just doesn’t dance.
“So when she dances, you know you’re doing good.”
Miller works on the three sets of routines, with the girls having input into the stunts and words.
She said the team does not have a “wow factor” but uses a clean routine so judges have no points to deduct.
Round One is the essence of creativity, she said.
“You have two jumps that are required in that round, and they have to be the first two jumps and they are judged,” she said. “They have to be done in unison.
“You can do more but only the first two jumps are judged. Basically, it’s to create a pretty picture.”
Round Two is the compulsory round.
“The first 10 motions are exactly the same,” Miller said. “It’s called the 10-count precision drill.
“Everybody in the state of Michigan does the same exact time count. Skills are the difficulty factor.”
Round Three is where teams showcase jumps, stunts and tumbling.
Family affair
This is a special season for Miller, whose daughter Mackenzie is a freshman. Miller gets emotional when talking about her.
“My heart smiles every day,” Miller said. “I’ve lived for this moment, to be able to coach her in the sport I love and to know that she, too, loves this.
“I love to watch her doing it. We get to share this.”
Cheer is actually a family affair for the Millers.
Daughter Paige is an eighth grader who cheers on the middle school team and son Joe, a seventh grader who plays football, basketball, baseball and runs track, is “becoming one of my biggest fans,” Miller said.
“He’ll say, ‘Mom, I really like your words this year’ or ‘Mom, I really like that stunt you’re doing,’ He’ll ask questions about it.
“He loves to watch his sisters. He was up in the stands last year while I was taping when they were in middle school and Joe was behind me with his friends yelling, ‘That’s my sister.’”
Mackenzie Miller said it is not a problem with her mother coaching the team.
“Sometimes it’s hard, but really it’s not,” she said. “She pushes me harder than she does anybody else, so I have to live up to her expectations.
“It’s not too hard because her expectations are achievable. (Her expectations) push me, and they’re good.”
Those four are not the only athletes in the family.
Miller’s husband, Paskell, coaches the Paw Paw junior varsity boys basketball team and is the competitive cheer team photographer.
Son Charles, a sophomore, plays football, basketball and runs track.
Miller has had a shepherding influence as well on Boven, who said her coach “also brings a mother figure, because when my parents were gone, she stepped in."
That is one reason Boven is so conflicted about starting this season on the sideline on crutches.
“That’s why sitting out hurts so bad, because cheer is the thing that saved me from my parents’ situation,” she said with a tear slowly rolling down her cheek. “Once I got injured, it was like ‘I’m losing it.’
“Then I realized I’m not losing anything; it’s just making me stronger. They really are my family. Without them, I wouldn’t be who I am now and I wouldn’t be as happy.”
Besides Boven, Miller has seven other seniors and no juniors on her cheer team.
Seniors are Mahadiah Blakley, Kaitlyn Ciot, Brittany Cunningham, Ciarra DeLaRonde, Magdalena Flores, Ashton Glenn and Alyssa VanDenBerg.
Sophomores are Claire Atkinson, Carolyn Cook, Isabelle Dalton, Kaitlyn Hamacher, Mia Labelle, Claudia Muessig and Joscelin Stewart.
Other freshmen are Kylie Chai, Peniel Daspan, Raelyn DeGroff, Jakelyn Vargas, Kate Wiitanen and Hailey York.
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) Paw Paw’s competitive cheer team performs during last season’s MHSAA Finals at the Grand Rapids DeltaPlex. (Middle) From left: Paw Paw coach Stefanie Miller, senior Madison Boven, freshman Mackenzie Miller. (Below) Paw Paw finished seventh in Division 3 last season. (Action photos by Paskell Miller; head shots by Pam Shebest.
![Gibraltar Carlson elevates during a routine at Friday night’s Division 2 Final.](/sites/default/files/2023-03/230303_D2_2H.jpg)
Back on Top in Downriver Rivalry, Carlson Claims 1st Finals Title Since 2019
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
March 3, 2023
MOUNT PLEASANT – It was Gibraltar Carlson’s turn to triumph in what has become one of the state’s most intense high school rivalries.
The Marauders seized control of Friday’s Division 2 Competitive Cheer Final from the start, then held off a valiant push from archival Allen Park to win the 12th cheer state championship in school history at McGuirk Arena in Mount Pleasant.
“We came in with the mindset of winning,” said Carlson senior Kaitlynn Demers. “We do these things in practice until they are perfect, so that we can bring them out here on the mat.”
Carlson and Allen Park were both more than eight points ahead of the field after two rounds, then distanced themselves even further by nailing their challenging Round 3 routines.
Carlson won the meet at 789.54, a little over a half-point better than Allen Park (788.86). Dearborn Divine Child (774.96) took third, followed by Bay City Western (767.94) and Middleville Thornapple Kellogg (762.28).
“Both teams are truly incredible,” said second-year Carlson coach Alyssa Tocco, who, ironically, is a 2016 graduate and former cheerleader at Allen Park.
“When you beat Allen Park, you’ve done something special. This is going to take a while to sink in, but right now I feel nothing but pride and love for my girls.”
Either Allen Park or Carlson have now won the past 16 D2 cheer titles. The last time a school other than those two won it was Holland Christian in 2007.
That competition has pushed both to greater heights of precision in the earlier rounds and more demanding routines in the critical Round 3.
Unlike earlier in the day, when unheralded Croswell-Lexington snuck in-between powers Richmond and Pontiac Notre Dame Prep for an improbable Division 3 title, Allen Park and Gibraltar Carlson quickly distanced themselves from the rest of the field – making it a two-team race coming down the stretch in the final round.
Allen Park went fifth in Round 3 and absolutely nailed it, putting even more pressure on Carlson, which followed AP onto the mat in the sixth position.
“We had a great day,” said 17th-year Allen Park coach Julie Goodwin, whose team was shooting for a fourth-straight title. “I couldn’t have asked for a better three rounds from the girls. We did everything we needed to do.”
Indeed, it was certainly not a case of Allen Park losing it, but rather of Carlson coming out and winning it.
Taking the mat immediately after the Jaguars’ powerhouse Round 3 performance, the Marauders did even better, gaining an extra point in the final round (320.60-319.60). Carlson’s biggest edge, however, was in the first round, when it bolted to a significant 1.7-point lead.
“We were ready and focused from the start,” said Tocco. “Never count out Round 1. We work on it constantly, and that made a difference today.”
The Marauders were led this winter by an outstanding senior class, which included Demers, a returning first-team all-stater, and second-team honorees Tiaira Michalik, Ellen Szucs and Emilee Bain. Senior Ciana Caliguire and junior Mya Oikarinen were returning honorable mention choices.
Allen Park, which finished second behind Carlson in the Downriver League, turned the tables and edged the Marauders at Regionals by two-hundredths of a point.
The Jaguars had a veteran team this year as well, with 11 seniors and 11 juniors on the 27-athlete roster. Among the team leaders were senior returning first-team all-staters Kristina Beste, Alyssa Rios and Madisyn Setser and senior second-team all-state choices Aleia Breckenridge and Emma Buffa.
Carlson has the upper hand in the rivalry historically, with 12 championships and seven runner-up finishes, but hadn’t won a championship since 2019. Allen Park, which has five state titles and five runners-up finishes, had seized control with three straight crowns.
Reclaiming the top spot felt extra sweet for the Carlson seniors, who didn’t want to end their prep careers without a Finals championship.
“This is a dream come true,” said Carlson senior Avery St. Andre. “Being able to win state and to be surrounded by the girls I love is incredible.”
PHOTOS (Top) Gibraltar Carlson elevates during a routine at Friday night’s Division 2 Final. (Middle) Allen Park competes on the way to a runner-up finish.