The CHS competition cheer team placed third at Saturday’s Newberg Classic. From left, back: Mikiah Southmayd, Ali Goyen, Emily Plourde and Arian Lawson. Middle: Haley Smith and Kiara McNamara. Front: Skye Wagner. CHRISTINE HARPER
Winning a trophy in their first outing of the season was a great confidence builder for Creswell High School’s competition cheer team, which competed Jan. 20 at the Newberg Classic, hosted by Newberg High.
The Bulldog squad took third place in the 3A/2A/1A Division to bring home the hardware.
”Saturday’s competition went well,” said Creswell Head Coach Christine Harper. ”We used it as a good starting point for our season.”
The seven-member CHS competition cheer team, comprised of Mikiah Southmayd, Kiara McNamara, Ali Goyen, Arian Lawson, Skye Wagner, Haley Smith and Emily Plourde, performed a routine featuring stunting, tumbling, cheering and dance.
The routine opened with several stunts, jumps and tumbling. The middle portion involved cheering. ”The OSAA has been trying to get back into what cheerleading us all about: crowd-leading,” Harper said. ”So, the middle of our routine is a crowd involvement cheer – chanting our school colors and cheering on our Dawgs.”
The team followed that with more stunting, including a heel stretch pyramid and back-to-back basket tosses, and then closed their routine with what Harper described as ”our sassy and fun dance.”
While the team’s routine does not have a theme, it does have ”lots of sass,” Harper said, adding that ”the dance is my favorite part since it’s when the girls have the most fun – and it shows!”
Harper plans to tweak her team’s routine, based on their scores from this first competition, with the goal of earning higher scores this Saturday, when the team competes at Sheldon.
”I like to study our scores and make changes where needed in our routine to score more points and build up our basic stunts to more advanced skills to increase our point potential,” Harper said. ”The team’s goal is to improve at each competition and do our best at state championships.”
