Some people like surprises. Others don’t.
Based on the way they approached their Division 2 district competition on Saturday, Feb. 18, it seems Plainwell competitive cheer coach Tracy Derhammer and her athletes fall into the former category.
“We decided not to look at our final score or the standings,” Derhammer said. “Instead, we just wanted to wait for results to be announced.”
It turned out to be a great surprise.
Plainwell finished with 726.84 points to beat out runner-up Stevensville Lakeshore by 8.68 points and claim the district championship.
Fellow Allegan County teams Wayland and Hamilton finished seventh and eighth, respectively, with scores of 644.34 and 638.52.
In a Division 3 district at Otsego, the host team earned itself a regional berth thanks to its runner-up finish with 693.4 points. Allegan finished fifth with 653.24 points to end up one spot away from qualifying for regionals, while Hopkins was 11th with 560.9 points.
“ I kept scores from my team but let them know we were in the fight for the title,” Derhammer said. “We had a few minor execution errors in round three, but I felt good about our performance. It was a great moment when we realized we pulled it off.”
Despite those minor errors mentioned by Derhammer, round three proved to be the key for the Trojans.
Plainwell, which trailed Stevensville 220.5-217 after round one, faced a 425.76-420.04 deficit against the Lancers at the end of the second round.
But the Trojans turned in a meet-best score of 306.8 in the third round. Coupled with Stevensville’s score of 292.4, that was more than enough to allow Plainwell to leapfrog the Lancers and take the top spot in the final standings.
“Winning districts was something we didn’t start talking about until mid-January when we realized it was possible,” Derhammer said. “We worked really hard the week leading up to (districts).”
Plainwell is slated to compete in regionals at Mona Shores on Saturday, Feb. 25, at 10 a.m.
Otsego, meanwhile, racked up its highest score of the season in earning its runner-up finish to Paw Paw, which posted a 750.46.
“We had an awesome home crowd cheering us on,” Otsego coach Jaime Kortokrax said. “I could feel the energy in the gym when we were performing.
“Our goal for the season has always been to improve our scores each time we compete and so far we have been reaching that goal. We reached our highest score of the season with a 693.”
And Kortokrax hopes the best is still to come.
“We hope to score higher then that on Saturday at regionals,” she said.
Otsego will compete at the Rockford regional on Saturday, Feb. 25, at 6 p.m.
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