Jay fourth at state

NEW CASTLE — The Patriots took a step toward their ultimate goal.
Jay County High School’s cheerleading squad posted a fourth-place finish Saturday at the Indiana Cheer Championship state finals at New Castle. That’s an improvement from the previous week when the Patriots were fifth at the state preliminary competition.
“There were parts that were definitely better than last week,” said Jay County coach Abby Champ. “Those stunts that fell last week, didn’t, and they’re our harder stunts so they’re going to score us better.
“There were a lot of things we did so much better.”
For at least a year, JCHS has had its sights set on a February trip to Orlando, Florida, for the Universal Cheerleaders Association national championships. Having now proven themselves one of the best squads in the state, they now have two weeks to prepare for the Hoosier Championship, where they will seek to earn a national bid, on Nov. 20 at Pendleton Heights.
“I’m really happy with where we finished,” said Champ, noting the quality of Division B in which her squad trailed champion Bishop Dwenger, Pendleton Heights and Mount Vernon.
“Now we know what we need to do, but we also know that we can compete with those teams.”
The Patriots scored 254 of a possible 280 points with tumbling accounting for their biggest gains from the previous week.
Jay County hit the back handspring, back tucks that open their routine. It also had strong long tumbling, which features matching full twists by juniors Courtney Miles and Breea Liette.
The squad also added junior Sydnee Lee back into the tumbling mix after she left those skills out last week because of an injury.
The result was an increase of nearly two points for tumbling, including a 10 for variety, a 9.4 for difficulty of standing tumbling and a 9.0 for synchronization.
Senior Alexus Liette said she was also happy with the stunt sequence.
“Everybody hit their stunt sequence, and that’s really good,” she said. “We’ve been working hard on that.
“And tumbling, we cleaned up a lot. And we hit our dance really well.”
Typically a squad noted for how clean and precise its routines are, the Patriots had taken some hits in that area at the preliminaries. But they fixed those problems Saturday.
“We started taking that for granted because we started adding some difficulty in, and we got nailed for that on tumbling last week,” added Champ. “When we started going to some of those more difficult things we started losing some of those basics that we needed to get back to. So we spent this week not moving out of tumbling and our snap ups just being bigger and better, just everything being done with more confidence. … And I really think they did that well.”
Jay County’s best scores came from the cheer incorporation/jumps judge who awarded them at least 9.4 points in every category and 67.1 out of a possible 70 overall. It again earned a perfect 10 for variety as well as a 9.9 for difficulty.
For the second consecutive week, the Patriots’ scores for variety were strong across the board as they also posted a 10 in that area for their stunts and pyramids.
It was in execution of those stunts and pyramids where they had a few struggles, with two of their four groups dropping a bit early on their heel stretches. Another individual stunt fell midway through the routine, and there were some hiccups in the final pyramid.
Still, it was the ability to recover from those miscues and not let them compound that pleased the Patriots.
“We had some mistakes, but we just kept things in the air and kept going,” said Miles. “You just forget about the little mistake and keep going.”
Champ concurred, noting that one of the things she was curious to learn was how her nine freshman on the squad would respond to difficult situations, especially given that they did not get the chance to compete at the Indiana State Fair because of rain. Though the final pyramid wasn’t perfect, Jay County pulled it together at the end.
“Our ending pyramid didn’t go as planned,” said Champ. “But our ending picture was flawless. And that’s the last thing the judges remember.”