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Local cheer squads compete in OVAC championships

By Staff | Feb 11, 2009

The Tyler Consolidated High School varsity cheerleaders ended their competition season this weekend at the OVAC Cheerleading Championships in Wheeling at WesBanco Arena.

The girls finished eighth out of nine squads this year. Not only was it difficult to compete with such talented squads such as St. Clairsville, Magnolia and Martins Ferry, which took the top three placings, but the Silver Knights squad lost two cheerleaders on Monday and Head Coach Merritt Maxwell was forced to re-work the entire routine in four days.

Four days is far less than the amount of time most squads in West Virginia have to get their routines down, and squads in Ohio have extra practice time as they are allowed to work all year round.

Despite the odds, Tyler Consolidated’s cheerleaders still went out and competed proudly.

“The girls did a wonderful job considering what they went through this week,” said Maxwell. “I am very proud that they were able to overcome the loss of the two girls and still compete on Saturday. Though we placed low, they had fun and did a great job with the routine.”

As well as competing in the OVAC, the cheerleaders end this competition season taking fourth place at the Region I competition and second place at the LKC Cheerleading Champion-ships.

“This season we had a lot of injuries and other things that happened and the cheerleaders persevered over all of them. Placing second at LKC was probably the highlight of the season for us. We hope that next year we can improve on that and bring home the LKC Championship.”

The varsity cheerleaders will finish out their season supporting both the boys and girls basketball teams at home games as well as tournaments. They will also perform during half time of the boys LKC Night Of Champions, an honor placed on the top three LKC Cheerleading Champions, on Saturday, Feb. 21.

Paden City also competed in the annual cheerleading competition, finishing in fifth place.They were less than a point away from fourth place, which would have earned them a plaque.

Champions in the Class A field were Toronto, repeat winners from a year ago.