Sports

Despite Failing to Make Regionals, Lakers Have A Season to Cheer About

West Bloomfield High School fell in the 2011 MHSAA district round Friday after winning the Oakland Activities Association (White) Championship for the first time in history.

Regardless of how it ended, the West Bloomfield High School cheer team had a season for the yearbook.

The Lakers’ season ended Friday with a seventh-place finish at the MHSAA district championships at Novi High School with 691.2 points. Third -year coach Trish Olds said afterward, “It just wasn’t our day.”

But sophomore Leighann Leslie was quick to point out that the Lakers were in unchartered waters.

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“I really wanted to get fourth (to qualify for the regional competition), and we really pushed it," Leslie said. "We tried our best, so either way, I’m happy. It’s such an improvement from the beginning of the year, honestly, I’m just happy right now for everyone here.”

According to Leslie, the season was going “pretty good” until the first round of the Oakland Athletics Association (White) championships Feb. 5 at Oxford High School.

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The Lakers had played through a multitude of injuries to key upperclassmen and she said that they “just remained focused on competing” against tough competition in Oxford and North Farmington High. However, after what Olds described as a “perfect" round one, West Bloomfield went on to win the league championship for the first time in its history.

“One of the categories that judges score on in cheer is ‘overall impression,’ and that tells the story of it, to me. The judges stopped looking for deductions and just felt the energy of the girls,” she said. “You could feel it. They were starting to talk. … We hadn’t seen it like this.”

“There was a part of me that felt we’re going against hard teams, but another part of me said if we try, we can do it,” Leslie said. “We went into the first round and we just did so well, and we felt so confident. After we ended up winning, I was just so happy. … I think that we got last (place in the league championships) last year, and so to see us improve so much, it makes me so happy for everyone.”

The Lakers ended up beating second-place Oxford, 725.8-720.6, to secure a second-place finish in the league standings, one point below Oxford. According to fourth-year co-coach Ashley Valovich, it marked the high point of a long journey.

“We set the bar a little bit higher this year," Valovich said. "We made it a rule, if you were on varsity, you had to do certain things. The team is so much closer — we have a great group of 11 seniors who helped everyone understand that we need to take it up a notch and they did."

Olds noted that the team will greatly miss all of its seniors, especially team captain Rylie Motley, who she said is “like a coach on the floor” and one who fights through obstacles to help the team.

“At the (league) championship, she was so sick, she had a garbage bag with her the whole time,” said Motley’s father, Larry, who said that Rylie will be attending Michigan State to study nursing in the fall. “But she’s a little go-getter, she’s a dynamo. She toughed it out.”


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