OVAC Crowns More Champs!

It was packed house at WesBanco Arena Saturday. This time it was for the ones that normally cheer everyone else on. Today however, it was everyone else’s turn to cheer on the cheerleaders and did they every show up. The crowd was loud, engaged, and very supportive!

If you have never been to a Cheering competition at WesBanco I will lay it out for you. It is organized and very structured. The teams are on one side of the arena and the fans are of the other. The bottom two section of the stands “The Fan Zone” that sit right behind the judges are open to the fans of the team that is competing at the time. Ushers are there to let fans in and out of those sections and help control the crowd.

There is little down time between squads competing so fans move in and out of that section pretty quickly. They line up in anticipation for the next squad above the sections. It is almost an on-deck type of scenario. It’s neat to watch, because people come down one side and exit the other. The same rotation happens on the mat with the teams.

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The announcer even does a great job of explaining who is on and mentioning sponsors that make this happen. He engages the crowd and once in a while will grab a fan and ask them questions. At one point he tried, unsuccessfully, to get some dads to have a cheer contest of their own.

The judges themselves are at a long table directly in front of the squads. After each squad is finished a lady comes along and takes the score sheets to the head table that’s just off to the side.

In between squads, music is playing loudly, and the taste of music is geared towards what high school cheerleaders would listen to, I assume. I did get caught up a little and sang my fair share of Pitbull, Justin Bieber, and more at the event.

As for the competition itself, its fierce! These squads put in countless hours to get ready for this competition. Some of these young people been at tumbling and more since a very young age. These are highly conditioned athletes.

Cheering does come with risk as well. If you do not know, the rate of sports injuries that cheerleaders suffer is quite high and sometimes, unfortunately, on the extreme side.

What else most people fail to consider about cheering is it has the longest season out of any of our sports. Not only do they cheer on the spring sports, but their season continues into the winter sports as well. So, in fact what they have is two seasons worth of games, practices, and competitions. When you really stop to think about it, they may even have more than that because they cheer for multiple teams in each one of those seasons.

Several squads really strutted their stuff on Saturday with Edison, Wheeling Central, Conotton Valley, St. Clairsville, and Wheeling Park claiming victories in their divisions. A complete list is below.

St. Clairsville had the best overall score (381.35) on the day beating the next team in their division, Harrison Central, by a whopping 58.3 points to earn their 15^th straight OVAC title. The squad looked absolutely remarkable and the number of hours and hard work they put in showed. I have an untrained eye for cheering competitions, but even I can tell when timing is right, energy is high, and greatness is present. All of these things were present when the Red Devils hit the mat.

Wheeling Central displayed these same qualities, as you could just tell the time and effort this team put into their routine as well. Their timing, energy, and the overall the impression that they gave where it just looked like they were having such a great time performing, at a very high level I might add, was reason enough for the Maroon Knights to claim the title in their division.

Barnesville continued and built on the success their entire school has been having this year. With their football and wrestling teams bulldozing people. Their cheer squad answered the call on Saturday and turned out a performance that let them claim victory over their hometown rivals, Union Local. Someone get these kids a Milk Jug! One more thing about Barnesville is their fans were there and super supportive. They had the most young men show up to support their squad. I don’t know if all the other sports teams in Barnesville had a day off, but it seemed like they were all there for their squad.

Speaking of Union Local and I will add in John Marshall. Those two schools had the loudest fans sections from my perspective. It seemed very noticeable to me in the uptick of volume when both schools were competing. That’s saying something, because every school present Saturday had a very impressive fan section. Both Union Local and John Marshall did do their fans proud by turning in fantastic performances.

Edison took the title in the non-tumbling division. Maybe I should say they ran away with the title. Beating the second-place team, Bridgeport, by a total of 82.55 points. Again, I am no cheering expert, but I know if you beat the next closest team by over 82 points, you’re really good! That entire division was good too. Even the 5^th place Wellsville team looked amazing to me. There wasn’t much separation with teams 2-5 in this division, only 14.6 points. That should speak to all the teams’ quality in this non-tumbling division. They all had a great day.

Conotton Valley took the 1A crown in impressive fashion in a very close battle between them and Madonna. Only edging out very small, but significate victory, by 1.25 points.

Wheeling Park continued their domination in cheering, as defending champs, with yet another 5A title on the day, edging out Brooke by 12.25 points. I believe this is 10 in a row and 20 overall for the Patriots. This was a great accomplishment, because both Brooke and John Marshall made sure Park had to be on top of their game. All three of these schools had commanding performances. When the score cards came in though it was Park on top in a decisive decision. You could really just tell the athleticism of Park squad. Add in some good choreography and it just made it too much for both Brooke and John Marshall to overcome.

On the day you could really tell that about so many of the squads. Great athleticism and kinesthetic awareness of these young people made it a great day to just be a fan. There were so many wonderfully choregraphed routines. Plus, add in all the pom-poms, flags, and cards to represent all the different school and their colors it just made it fun. You know when you see great stuff and I did on Saturday. Everyone should be very proud. Well Done!