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Rochester Arrives Again on Top of D1
March 4, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
GRAND RAPIDS – Rochester’s run to a 14th MHSAA competitive cheer championship wasn’t as smooth as the build up to number 13 a year ago.
Of course, that’s almost always going to be the case when comparing to a perfect run like the Falcons enjoyed during 2015-16, when they won all of their competitions.
But a few bumps along the way this winter made Rochester’s latest addition to its record title total special as well. A team that usually doesn’t pull up underclassmen had five. The Falcons had 15 seniors two seasons ago and 13 last winter, but only eight this time. There were only 23 athletes total on the team, making it the school’s smallest since 2000. And by Dec. 10, another perfect run was out of reach, after a third place at an invitational at Stoney Creek won by Sterling Heights Stevenson, Friday’s Division 1 Final runner-up, with 16 more points than Rochester scored that day.
“What happened last year was very out of the ordinary. That was a huge blessing for us,” Rochester senior Megan McMurray said. “This year was a little more of a normal path that we usually take. We did place low in a few competitions, but we rose every time that we fell, and our main goal was just to blast it out during our playoffs, and we did just that. And we got the results (again) that we got last year.”
Rochester won Friday’s Final at the Grand Rapids DeltaPlex with a score of 789.02, nearly two points ahead of Stevenson and four more than the rest of the field. That overall score was the third highest posted in Division 1 this season, and the Falcons’ Round 3 total of 320.70 tied its division-best score set earlier this winter.
And it made Rochester a repeat champion for the first time since finishing a three-season run at the top in 2007. This is the fourth time the Falcons have strung together multiple championships since winning the first three Class A Finals from 1994-96, and it’s something that’s becoming increasingly difficult at the Division 1 level as the state’s biggest schools continue to close the gap.
For example: As longtime coach Susan Wood noted, all eight teams Friday hit their Round 3 routines – and that made the Falcons unsure if they had scored enough to pull off the title.
It’s almost tradition for teams to leave the mat after Round 3 and fold into hugs and sometimes tears. Last season, the Falcons did so knowing they’d clinched; this time, McMurray said, those tears came from pulling off a routine that Wood had designed even tougher than a year ago – and even though McMurray and her teammates weren’t sure if they had the title in hand.
That refusal to “water down” the difficulty, even for a newer group like this one, is part of Wood’s philosophy. It can come with a little higher risk – but paid off again Friday with the highest reward.
“Cheerleaders do millions of repetitions of things over and over and over again to get the muscle memory where it needs to be, but with this group we had to be very mentally tough to do it,” said Wood, who has led the team 36 seasons and to all of its championships. “Because physically, I think a lot of these teams are the same. But mental toughness in newer kids is harder to pull out – so that was one of our big battles.”
The seniors – including three-year varsity athletes McMurray, Sydney Asuncion and Sam Ellison – tried to prepare their younger teammate that this might be a rockier road than the perfect recent past.
In McMurray’s words, the Falcons “understood that this was going to be a completely different journey.”
But the team started hitting all of its three rounds at the Oakland Activities Association Red finale Feb. 4, finishing five points better than a field including eventual Division 1 finalists Stoney Creek, Rochester Adams and Lake Orion.
“We were always physically capable of doing things, but a lot of the younger girls were a little bit shy and timid, so a lot of the seniors had to get them out of their shells, make some great personal connections,” McMurray said. “By the end of the season we were in full grind, kicking it, ready to go.
“It felt amazing to be part of the team that brought it back last year. It feels even more amazing to be the team that’s keeping it going.”
But one opponent that should make that streak harder to continue is Stevenson, which tied its best finish ever with its first runner-up performance since taking second in 2011. And the Titans did so with only one senior on the team – and nine freshmen competing.
Stevenson’s score of 787.06 was its best this season by two points, and its Round 3 320.20 was just a half point shy of Rochester’s meet and season best.
The Titans finished seventh two seasons ago and third in 2016.
“We had that uphill battle right from the start, which makes this even sweeter,” said coach Brianna Verdoodt of preparing her young roster. “The amount of work and push and dedication and the grit that went into getting them here. The real, real hard work was put in this year. So now it’s just starting off and keeping things fresh. We watched them truly become a team over the year … this was the best day they’ve had as a team, even off the mat as well.”
Grandville, last season’s runner-up, finished third at 785.34. Stoney Creek was fourth at 783.10 and Rochester Adams, at the Finals for the first time since 1997, finished fifth at 782.66. Hudsonville, Lake Orion and Brighton rounded out the standings.
PHOTOS: (Top) Rochester performs during Friday's Division 1 Final at the DeltaPlex. (Middle) A Grandville cheerleader is raised by her teammates during their round.
![Croswell-Lexington celebrates its Division 3 championship.](/sites/default/files/2023-04/230405_CrosLex_2H.png)
Team of the Month: Croswell-Lexington Competitive Cheer
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
April 14, 2023
The Croswell-Lexington competitive cheer team had finished fourth, fifth and fourth, respectively over the last three Division 3 Finals as this season began in November with more high expectations – but also the annual challenge of believing those could be attained.
Competing in the same Blue Water Area Conference as Richmond, the Pioneers are more familiar than most with the program that entered the season coming off a fourth-straight Division 3 title. And as a regular at Finals weekend, Cros-Lex also is plenty aware of the power of Pontiac Notre Dame Prep, the only other team besides Richmond to win a Division 3 championship between 2012-22.
But during the Pioneers’ first competition this winter, coach Katie Tomlinson knew this could be the team to rise above that history and make some of its own.
Cros-Lex finished fifth of 18 at the Jan. 6 Richmond Invitational, but second in Division 3 to only the host Blue Devils, and with scores including a D3-best 309.30 in Round 3.
“For our first competition, (we had) some of our best scores we’ve ever received – and typically our first competition is really tough for us. So that was kind of a turning point,” Tomlinson said. “Just the confidence they had that first night, competing for the first time, it was just a shift.”
That shift provided early momentum as Cros-Lex made one of the most impressive championship moves in any winter sport this season.
The Pioneers are the MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” for March after finishing their season as MHSAA Finals champions in the sport for the first time, overcoming a 1.24-point deficit to Richmond after Round 2 to win the Division 3 title at Central Michigan University’s McGuirk Arena.
Croswell-Lexington finished with three-round score of 776.72, seven-tenths of a point better than runner-up Notre Dame Prep and with nearly two points more than the Blue Devils. The Pioneers launched into the lead with a 314.50 in Round 3, the second-best score for that round in the competition.
“I think that it was such a shock for them in the moment and so exciting and rewarding,” Tomlinson recalled this week, “but it definitely was the work put in, just like every other team, and believing in themselves and just going out there and doing what we always do and what we’d worked hard for and what we’d put in that time and effort for – and just watching it pay off. It was kind of a mix of just really believing in ourselves – it’s been a challenge for a few years now building up that confidence to know that they are a team that’s worthy of a state championship and then proving that. They earned it.”
And it was truly a team effort. Cros-Lex had 28 athletes, and only one of the other 31 teams across four divisions at the Finals – Division 1 Grandville with 30 – had more on the roster. Of those 28, 22 competed in at least one round at CMU. Juniors Alexis Bales, Cora Katulski, Shelby Oliver and Makayla Rice and sophomore Carly Old competed in all three rounds, while seniors Noelle Golda, Santanna Horning and Emma Six and sophomores Larkin Krohn, Niah Krohn, Kaleigh Kelch and Addyson Sharpe competed in two rounds. Seniors Cassidy Seaman, Deborahann White, Maria Tabernero and Alleyna Martinez; junior Grace Hodges, sophomores Emma Yearkey, Madison Greenaway, Maggie Wallace and Addison Gardner; and freshman Chelsea Miller also took the mat.
Oliver, Katulski, Rice, Bales, Old and Kelch made the all-state first team. Wallace, Hodges and Sharpe made the second team, and Six, Horning and Golda earned honorable mentions.
Cros-Lex had finished second to Richmond in the BWAC and second to Notre Dame Prep at their District before finishing third to both at the Regional. The Pioneers had never finished higher than fourth at a Final.
“We are up against (Richmond) quite a bit and I’m super close with Kelli (Blue Devils coach Kelli Matthes) … and honestly, we enjoy going to the competitions that have those teams that have won on that stage,” said Tomlinson, who has been part of the Pioneers cheer program since seventh grade beginning as an athlete and including the last eight seasons as head coach. “It sure pushes us further to be better and keep improving instead of staying satisfactory.
“It does make it hard when you’re up against such powers for years where they take it every single year. It makes the girls second-guess themselves and their capabilities, so that was a big thing that we started back in June for sideline and tried since to implement every day – the confidence and the belief in ourselves that even though they’re great, we are too.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2022-23
February: Hart girls & boys basketball - Report
January: Taylor Trillium Academy girls bowling - Report
December: Byron Center hockey - Report
November: Martin football - Report
October: Gladwin volleyball - Report
September: Negaunee girls tennis - Report