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'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.)
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Fewer in Number, Huskies Just as Mighty
March 4, 2017
By Dean Holzwarth
Special for Second Half
GRAND RAPIDS – Breckenridge possessed the smallest competitive cheer team in terms of numbers among the eight in Saturday’s MHSAA Division 4 Final.
Being fewer in number, however, didn't prevent the Huskies from adding another championship to their already remarkable resume.
Despite a roster of only nine, Breckenridge won its third straight Division 4 Final on Saturday at Grand Rapids DeltaPlex.
It was the second time the Huskies had won at least three titles in a row. They captured six Class C/D titles over a span of seven years from 2000-2006.
Breckenridge tallied a three-round score of 768.66 to edge runner-up Hudson (765.10.)
“We were a smaller team this year, and we worked on that and knew how the score sheet worked,” Breckenridge co-coach Deb Gaines said. “Just doing everything we could to get all the points we could as a small team. We worked harder and turned over every rock to be stronger while also working on our vocals.”
There were benefits and difficulties involved with having a decreased number of girls, according to co-coach Jenna Graham.
“It’s easier for us to work with less girls, but on the mat you can’t hide anybody,” she said. “From player one to nine they all had to be stellar.”
The members of the team didn’t mind the low total. It helped create a tight unit that was determined to continue the program’s successful tradition.
“Having less girls does help because it’s less people you have to focus on and there are less personalities,” senior Madison Smith said. “Our team is so close, and I can say that these eight girls are my best friends.”
“I think we worked together better being smaller,” added senior Harley Conklin. “There were less arguments and we flowed really well together. Overall, we just clicked well.”
The Huskies clicked well early en route to the victory. They snared the early advantage with a score of 231.90 in Round 1.
“That was our goal,” Gaines said. “We knew we couldn’t be behind after Round 1. We were pleased with that, and we’re super happy. They did exactly what we’ve been practicing to do. To come out and deliver three great rounds, and that’s what they did.”
Smith said the Round 1 effort was a motivating factor.
“We knew we gave everything we had in that round so we knew we could do it for two more rounds,” she said. “This is the best feeling, and I hope every high school athlete gets to feel this.”
The program's 10th MHSAA Finals championship was particularly special for Gaines and Graham, who are mother and daughter.
Graham cheered for her mom in the early 2000s and was a part of three titles.
“It works awesome with us coaching together,” Graham said. “It’s special to share this together.”
Added Gaines: “We’re on the same page. We have the same goals and the same outlook. This keeps us going.”
Hudson returned to the top two for the first time in seven years.
The Tigers placed runners-up in 2010, the last in a string of three straight second-places finishes from 2008-2010.
“It feels great to be second,” said 20th-year Hudson coach Kelly Bailey. “You watch a lot of teams be disappointed with runner-up, but if you’re getting a medal you are getting a medal and I have all the respect in the world for Breckenridge. They are a great program and to be that close to them … you can’t ask for anything more."
The Tigers secured their lofty finish by posting the highest Round 3 score (315.80) of the day.
“They did exactly what we asked them to do,” Bailey said. “Just have fun and don’t give up until the end. We never looked at scores. We just went out there and did our best.”
Adrian Madison (753.54) took third, while last year’s runner-up, Michigan Center (749.44), placed fourth.
PHOTOS: (Top) Breckenridge performs en route to repeating as Division 4 champion Saturday. (Middle) Hudson earned its highest Finals finish since 2010, taking second.