Lakeland Cheer Squad Seeks Successful End to Season

A league title was the goal for the cheer team heading into this season. With that accomplished, the Eagles are aiming for bigger and better things.  

Lakeland captured first place in a home quad-meet, its only home meet of the season on Jan. 27 and is headed to the conference meet this Saturday at Waterford Kettering. That quad meet in January gave Lakeland a KLAA division title, but the next step this weekend is to qualify for district competition.  

For a team with many new varsity performers, the season has already been a major success according to the coach.

“We’ve already picked up our (regular season) league title and that was a major goal for us,” said Lakeland cheer head coach Janice Janssen. “Our team this season is very young so we have had to improve quite a bit since November to get to this point.

“It was very important that we won our home meet.  Not only was it the only one at home,  but it determined the champions of the Lakes Area North division,” she said.

Seniors Niki Calmeyn, Michele Janssen, Nicole Denston, Casey Singhoffer and Priscilla Call have all been instrumental to the team’s success, coach Janssen said. Each senior has been on a cheer team at Lakeland since their freshmen season, and the five girls grew up together cheering at the upper elementary school and middle schools levels as well.

“We still have a good portion of our season left but already I know that I am going to miss them after the season,” Janssen said. “They are special because they really have taken on the leadership roles and have done everything they can to help the (underclassmen) on our team.”

Each day in practice the Lakeland girls focus on all aspects of their cheer routine with the anticipation of the rounds they will perform at competitions. During the competitive cheer season no music is used, as it is prohibited by MHSAA. Each routine consists of three rounds, each of which has time limits ranging from 90 seconds to 150 seconds. Those routines are often what are performed during halftime of basketball games in the winter, and at times during football season.

The first round is a flat cheer, which refers to the requirement that a team must complete a cheer routine with certain criteria that has to be met for scoring purposes. The flat cheer must have a minimum of two jumps which are judged along with eight formation changes.

But more than just the technical elements of the routine are scored by judges.

“Of course you have to perform it with style and flair,” Janssen said.  

The second round is comprised five skills along with a cheer. Each team has some ability to select the types of skills included within this routine, and for Lakeland those skills include walkovers, team back handsprings, team triple splits, team toe touches and team heel stretches. These gymnastics-like skills require flexibility, precision and flawless timing to ensure that each athlete on the team is in sync.

 Round three consists of tumbling and stunting. 

“This is the most difficult round,” Janssen said. “The girls have to have certain choreography, variety and difficulty in order to get points. The performance is then judged on how well everything hits.”

The KLAA conference championship at Kettering High School begins Saturday morning with competition expected to last until late afternoon.