![At the bottom of the third inning, the Lions are still scoreless. Rowe stands at home plate, preparing to bat, while Vandenbrink stands off to the side as the next batter up. Despite having the bases loaded, the team was unable to score any runs. “It’s just the beginning of the season. We’re just going to be playing out best by June, [and] that’s where champions are,” Rowe said.](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_3077-1200x900.jpg)
![All smiles. The group poses for a photo with last year’s book, “This is Our House,” along with their award for third Best in Show. Meikle, who was an Editor-in-Chief for the yearbook last year as well, holds both and stands at the center of the group. “That was an amazing feeling, going and grabbing the third place award,” Meikle said. “All of it paid off. I cried so much over that book, being able to receive [the award] was one of the highlights of my high school career, it was like the coolest thing ever.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/8bookpose_philly-1200x800.jpg)
For the first time ever, the West Linn Cheer competition team won the 6A OSAA state title in large traditional cheer. During this competition, they also won the Grand Champs, meaning they received the highest score out of all divisions— not just 6A.
Cheer competitions are judged based on three main categories: tumbling, stunting, and general performance. Points can also be deducted for things such as illegal skills, stepping on a sign, or making performance errors.
Hailey Stohler, senior, is a captain on the team and has been cheering with the varsity team for three years.
“We have been competing all season and receiving feedback on our routine as well as seeing how we compare to the other teams in our division,” Stohler said. “Based on that, we knew that if we could ‘hit’ our routine, [which means] having zero deductions from errors in our routine, we would have a very high chance of winning. Once we accomplished that, we felt very good about the routine right after.”
There are two categories that make up cheer competitions: gameday and traditional. West Linn competes in both, alongside doing sideline cheer for both football and basketball games.
“We have been practicing as a team since August, almost every weekday for two to three hours. In total, we have spent around 400 hours perfecting our routine,” Stohler said. “Our routine was very challenging this year with lots of high level skills. Although we had each individual skill down, having to put it all together and train our endurance so we wouldn’t be exhausted by the end was something we spent a lot of time working on.”
Alongside difficulty level, clean movements and routines are a large part of the scoring process.
“Our biggest strength this year was tumbling, which drove our score higher than others,” Stohler said. “We also focused on repetition to make sure our tumbling and stunting skills were clean, making our execution score high. Our strong desire to take first also made us very invested in our routine which helped our crowd leading score as well.”
Mia Harmon, junior, has been a competitive cheerleader since 5th grade and has been on the varsity cheer team for three years.
“In a cheer routine, there are so many skills being thrown,” Harmon said. “Whether that is stunts, tumbling, jumps, or something as simple as a motion. It can be really easy to get very caught up in the moment and rush it, which makes things a lot harder in reality because you look very rushed. That’s why it’s so important to take it one skill at a time. When I’m performing, I focus on the thing I am doing in the present.”
West Linn received a total of 110.8 points out of 120, which put them ahead of Aloha High School by over three points and ahead of Lakeridge High School by over six points.
“It felt like I was on top of the world,” Harmon said. “This has been a dream of mine since I started cheering in 3rd grade. To have that dream come true was the best feeling in the world. To hear the announcer call West Linn over the speakers was music to our ears.”
