Lakota, Clyde cheer make top finishes in state competition

TIFFIN — When you are a part of a team, everyone has to have the same dream. Everyone must be ready to work for it.That's what cheerleading is all about.Two local teams, Lakota and Clyde, competed on Saturday at the Best in the State at Hilliard Darby High School. The competition was sponsored by the Ohio High School Cheerleading Coaches Association, and is one of two organizations that oversees varsity cheer teams in Ohio.Columbian will compete on Feb. 8. The competition was split into two separate days due to the weather that hit Ohio.The other organization that oversees cheerleading and dance programs in Ohio is the Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators.But for any cheerleader or dancer, getting onto the team is just the start. From there, the hard work begins as the squads attend camps during the summer, such as Tiffin University for Lakota and Universal Cheerleaders Association summer camps such as the one Clyde attended at Norwalk High School.Then there is the learning of cheers, chants, and band dances to get the crowd on their feet during games and learning the routines for competitions.Sometimes, there is a summer competition schedule and getting into the weight room to lift.Like many athletes, all of the competitions, all the practices, all the team bonding lead to one final huge competition: BITS.Lakota's journey to BITSBefore Lakota competed at BITS, it competed at the Ohio Athletic Committee's competition and took the champion spot in the state on Jan. 11."It was our first year of ever reaching that achievement," Raiders coach Stephanie Reinhart said.Reinhart has been at the helm of Lakota varsity cheer for three years, but she is a fourth-year coach, as she coached the middle school team before taking on the high school team.The cheer program under Reinhart has gone through a rebuild year by year, and the progress of the program has come at a pace where the differences are more noticeable.The nine-member Raiders cheer squad has been competing at the BITS cheer competition for the last three years. This time was the closest they have ever been in getting to the first-place spot. Lakota missed the first-place spot by two-tenths of a point, which is the highest they have scored in the three years.They competed in Division V Non-Tumble Non-Build.Whether it was adding in extra practices, or the determination to place higher, they left it all out on the mat."Being able to show off everything that we have worked so hard for is amazing," Reinhart said. "Being able to perform at a state level like that is something that they all have dreamed of, and something they have all looked forward to."Upholding a tradition of winning seemed daunting to Reinhart at first, but between attending coaching clinics, knowing the routine to get there, making the girls use critical thinking skills, and posing some questions to the girls, including performance, coaches expectations, and most importantly, how to improve, it has led to the growth and progression seen currently."Quite honestly, when I cheered in high school, we cheered at the county fairs only," said Reinhart about why having the Raiders cheer squad compete. "When I started three years ago, it was rough as I had no experience on what it is like to take a squad to state. I had big shoes to fill as the previous coaches and previous teams all went to state. As soon as I took the girls, it was a bug that bit and like a real Bring It On movie. It's so much fun and brings it back to my passion for cheer that I had when I was in high school."It took a little bit for Lakota to come into its own on the mat."We weren't competing at a terrible level," Reinhart said. "But at the beginning of the season, the nerves got to us. It's no different to competing in front of a crowd on a Friday night, but a bit more anxious. The progression and growth that has been seen since we competed at Wood County until the Norwalk competition has been amazing."That competition allowed Lakota to see what they needed to fix before going into the OAC competition, which turned out to be a bit of an adjustment."Our routine changed before OACs," Reinhart said. "We took something that was a very big opener and we placed our trust in a completely new cheer."The OHSCCA score sheets have five pieces of criteria and each of those pieces are worth either five points or 10 points: Execution and how tight the motions are (10), proper use of props such as signs and megaphones (10), use of floor space (5), creativity and difficulty of routine (5), and overall cheer crowd appeal and engagement (10). A perfect score is 40 points."Seeing what was on those sheets allowed us to see where we needed to improve," Reinhart said, "Along with adjustments and where we could step up our difficulty in the routine."The team headed down the night before the BITS competition and had some team bonding take place, which is essential in cheer. The next morning, the right mindset gave them the energy that exploded out on the mat."When they walked into the competition, you can tell they had a different demeanor about them," Reinhart said. "You can see the change in energy, the mannerisms, the way they compliment the other teams."It's so awesome to see the sea of silver, navy, and white in the stands," Reinhart said. "Everyone sitting together, cheering for us for a change, it's an amazing feeling to have so many believe in you while you are out there, and it makes us want to keep going. Our biggest supporters are our parents and we couldn't do it with them, and we appreciate all the support from everyone that we get."Clyde's journey to BITSDating back to at least 1994, the school has had a competition squad on and off. Current coach Madison Andrews has been at the helm of the Fliers for the last four years, but has cheer coached for eight years, all at Clyde. She started as a volunteer assistant coach in 2018, then moved up to JV/assistant coach in 2019-2020 before being hired in 2022 as the head coach.When the Fliers competed at BITS, they competed in Division III Non-tumble non-build, and took home fifth place in the state.Clyde's program started training in early October with competition season starting in December, and each member of the five-member squad is required to be either on football or basketball cheer, though they can be on both if selected."They really enjoy choreographing their own routine," Andrews said. "It builds their confidence to do so."The biggest challenge that the Fliers face is that even though they choreograph their own routines is in terms of space, with only having five on the squad, using the amount of space and being loud are two of out the five pieces of criteria on the competition sheets. The space is normally nine mats, but when a squad doesn't have access to nine competition size mats, they have to get innovative to overcome the obstacle."We have to make do with the space we're given for practices," Andrews said. "Most nights that is practicing in the atrium in front of our auditorium. To get our athletes to the closest thing to performing on a competition floor, we've taped together sewing tape measures and strategically placed painters tape six feet apart to mark out where the lines and spaces of each mat would be."The biggest goal for Clyde is to continue growing the competition program. They have competed in both Traditional and Game Day categories, and hope to get back to that again.Even though Lakota and Clyde are both Sandusky Bay Conference schools, with one in the Lake and the other in River, cheer is another sport that doesn't see rivalries, only support and that includes not only their communities but squads, too."Any time we go to competitions, we have great support from other surrounding schools, believe it or not," Andrews said. "We as a league do a great job of showing up to support the other SBC teams, whether they are our competitors or not. As long as fellow league teams' performance time doesn't interfere with their warm ups and their own team's performance, you'll catch SBC teams in front of the mat supporting one another. The sportsmanship in our league when it comes to cheer is unmatched."For Lakota, the support from Raiders Nation both far and wide has had an impact when the team looks up into the stands.