The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Saline cheer ready for Regionals
Despite Round 1 hiccup, Hornets take third in Tecumseh
By Jerry Hinnen, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: February 28, 2008
The Saline competitive cheer team has come a long way in its two seasons, and the Hornets hope to show that one more time at their likely season-concluding Regionals Saturday.
Advertisement
But first, the Hornets warmed up with a solid showing at Saturday's Tecumseh Invitational. Saline placed third out five teams in their division, including another new season-high score in the "combination" Round 3.
"They nailed it," said head coach Launie Aben. "That's definitely our strongest round and that was our best performance so far. We just missed second by 14 points, but we were happy with third."
Making the finish even sweeter was that the Hornets had not shone in their usually consistent Round 1, though the team started to make up for it with a stronger-than-usual Round 2.
"I told them I wasn't going to settle this time, that we needed to pull something out, and they did," she said. "We had a lot of positives in that round, executing our jumps and formations.
"In Round 1, that's always been a strong round for us so maybe we were ready for a mishap. I'd rather we get it out of our system in Tecumseh than at Regionals."
Aben said that after a string of last-place finishes in the Hornets' inaugural season, she's been more than happy with the "mini-wins" represented by finishes like Saturday's.
"We struggled with that all last season, so it's still very nice," Aben said of finishing ahead of two other teams. "After that, finishing in the middle of the pack is like a win in itself."
But the most important thing, Aben said, was the Hornets' continued improvement — she cited having four girls now able to do back handsprings for Round 2 was another "mini-win" — and finishing the season strong at Regionals.
Aben admitted that grabbing one of the top two spots at Regionals (to be held at Wayne-Memorial) was "unrealistic" in a 17-team field she called " the toughest in the state," but that if the Hornets put together their best performance and continued to set the stage for a strong 2009, there would be no complaints.
"We're definitely a team on the rise," she said. "Getting our highest score, in all three rounds, would be a big accomplishment for the team. That's what we're shooting for."
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
Staff Blog, "Inside The Newsroom"
TOP JOBS
