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Tiger girls heading back to states
The Brentsville District cheerleaders didn't need to win the regional championship to earn another trip back to states.But they wanted to so badly and they came up one point short with a second-place finish to Briar Woods (270.5 points).
"You can't coach it and it's something that has to come from within the girls," said head coach Taryn Witt of the girls' enthusiasm.
Regardless, the Tigers will be heading to Richmond on Saturday to try to recapture the state title they first won in 2007. Brentsville finished in second place last season, right behind Williamsburg.
Witt vowed that this year, things would be different.
"If we don't drop, we can take it. And the kids know that," she said.
The Tigers put up what may be a program record of 269.5 points last Saturday in Orange County at the Region II event. According to Witt, Brentsville upped its level of difficulty from districts and would have won it all had it not been for a single fall during a stunt.
Such infractions cost teams three points.
"You don't know whether or not another team is going to have a mistake too. If they were going to accidentally drop a stunt, they could be in it too," said Witt.
Brentsville added more tumbling into its routine and performed 16 standing tucks at the start while the team challenged itself with harder stunts.
Witt named Briar Woods and Williamsburg as the Tigers' main competition at states. The other teams that clinched spots at states include third-place Sherando and fourth-place Louisa. They both finished more than 25 points behind Brentsville at regions.
"We hope the chips fall our way and hit our routine the way we know we can do it and hopefully that leads us to the top," said Witt.
The team's five competing seniors, Alexandra Sullivan, Alica Sullivan, Alexis Farriello, Ashley Ulman and Amanda Notarantonio, amped up emotions on the squad prior to regions. After dining on Chinese food provided by the members' parents, each of the soon-to-be-graduates told personal stories on Senior Night about what the cheerleading team has meant to them.
"Each of them cried. It all had the same realm of, 'You guys are making this senior year very special. You guys are stepping up to every challenge at the plate,'" said Witt.
"That was the turning point. We didn't have good practices coming into this regional meet."
Her goal for the final competition of the post-season is for each member to focus on their own performances, which need to be flashed with as much energy, enthusiasm and smiling as possible.
"We go out there to perform for ourselves and our fans and we want to show our fans how good we are," said Witt.
She added, "We're just going to work on making sure we have no mistakes. We're going to bring it. We're going to bring every thing we have because we want it. We want it bad."
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