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Tigers finish first, Bobcats second at Spiritfest
Western Prince William County won big Saturday in Sterling as varsity cheerleading teams from Brentsville District and Battlefield high schools came in first and second place respectively at the Park View High School Spiritfest.The Tigers won the most-competitive blue division with a score of 81.5, while the Haymarket-based Bobcats came in right behind their Nokesville neighbors by tallying 79.8 points.
Tigers
Brentsville opted for a different routine than is typically performed by teams at such events; they started with a cheer before going into the usual dance-cheer-stunts sequence.
Doing so allowed the Tigers, who closed the 16-team competition, to stand out a bit more from their competitors, said coach Taryn Witt.
According to the coach, past BDHS graduates came back to Brentsville to help the team set up its routine.
"We really changed it up because every other team starts with running tumbling, so we wanted to really throw a curveball in there," said Witt.
The Tigers started at 7:30 p.m., chanting a short cheer before throwing their pom-poms to the side of the mat. As they made a set of five pyramids, fans roared while the girls at the top of each group spun in the air doing what are called “full-ups.”
As a whole, the team performed several split-jumps with the members' feet sticking out at 180-degree angles.
One of the most climatic moments came when the five girls at the top of each pyramid lifted their left ankles to the back of their heads, causing a huge ovation from the delighted Tiger faithful.
"We really wanted to sell our routine. We really stressed that we needed to tell our team to make good facials and stuff," said Uleman, noting that hitting the full-ups is a "wow factor" that can make the crowd go "crazy."
Fellow senior Amanda Notarantonio added, "If we made a mistake, we didn't want to let it show on our faces. We wanted to be happy and smiling and get into the routine and music."
After losing significant talent from the graduated Class of 2009, Witt came up with a different routine strategy for the team that came in third at states last year and won it in 2007.
"We've been a strong tumbling team for several, several years now. And what we've done this year, to make it a little different, is we went and focused on our stunting (to) see if that would give us a little bit of a different edge. So, you're going to notice that we actually stunt for over half of our routine," said Witt.
According to co-captain Alexandra Sullivan, wins like this one at Spiritfest will pay dividends later in the season when the Tigers host districts.
"And people will come support us knowing" they won, said Sullivan, adding those same fans in the stands will "try to help us get pumped up and perform the best that we can do."
Bobcats
Battlefield's key to success came from executing hard-to-do stunts like the basket tosses leading into pyramid-building.
"I think our routine was based on more tumbling-oriented [stunts],” said assistant coach Lance Jackson. “And the height on there was really good and that's what really got people's attention and got their excitement going.”
Genevieve Johnson added that “One thing that really helped us out was our team spirit. We push each other a lot so even if we're down, everyone just takes the full effort to (help) each other.”
Battlefield also played on the emotion coming from the purple-clad crowd. The fans had been pumped up by the BHS alternate cheerleaders who were on spirit patrol through the stands.
"When the crowd cheers us on, it gives us more spirit to go harder," said senior Diamond Walker.
Like Brentsville, the Battlefield coaching staff, led by Stacy Hart, stressed the family message with the girls. According to senior Katie Surface, that meant sticking by teammates through the best and worst.
"Just basically encouraging them and telling them they can do it over and over again. And then, when they can't do it, just be like really supportive," she said.
Jackson said the trophy simply came down to the girls executing their own routine as flawlessly as possible and letting the chips fall where they may.
"We actually did a good job hitting our routine, executing our routine and that allowed us to score second,” he said.
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