NWHS cheerleaders win second state championship by PATTI STOKES Jennifer Loveday-Donovan, head coach for Northwest Guilford varsity cheerleaders, knows the thrill of winning a state championship. Last year a team comprised of 26 of the school’s varsity cheerleaders took first place in North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s Cheerleading Invitational in their division for the first time in the school’s history. And this year, they did it again.
Jennifer Loveday-Donovan
What started out as a team of 22 competing cheerleaders grew by two more right before a regional competition this fall.
“We as coaches didn’t feel we had done our best,” Loveday-Donovan said. “So, right before we went to regionals we had decided to add our two alternates … these two young ladies had shown up every day, and any time anyone was out or missing they were always willing to jump in. As a coach, I felt they should be rewarded.” The additional two cheerleaders bumped the team into the NCHSAA’s “Super Large Varsity” division, made up of six large high schools. That threw a little kink in things, but it ended up being the least of their worries. Armed with feedback from a regional competition held weeks before, Loveday-Donovan said she sat down for 14 hours and worked on revamping the team’s routine; when she was done, all but 45 seconds of the 235-second competition was new, including “tweaked” music. On the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the coaches and their team worked on perfecting their new routine. Then they performed before the student body at the Northwest/Northern Breast Cancer Awareness game. “It was a super cool thing,” Loveday-Donovan said. “Parents helped roll out the mats; and then kids came out of the stands to help them, and we didn’t even ask. To me, that says a lot about the cheerleading culture and how things are changing at Northwest. There were four parts of our routine where the
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DEC. 12 - 18, 2019
Courtesy photo
Members of Northwest Guilford Viking competition cheer squad, which won the Super Large Varsity NT D1 State Championship Saturday at the NCHSAA Cheerleading Invitational at the Raleigh Convention Center Dec. 7, include: Alli Stovall, Ava Berry, Avery Leggett, Avery Payne, Carley Pope, Elaina Edwards, Elizabeth George, Emily Casey, Emma Craig, Emma Penizotto, Isabella Joyner, Kaleigh Young, Kenley Pope, Kamryn Sprague, Layton Howard, Mackenna Myers, Mileah Godette, Mya Hulse, Olivia Carr, Reagan Piland, Sheridan Been and Samantha Rucker; Dylan Thompson, Claire Surette and Mackenzie Pigg, team managers. The girls are coached by Jennifer Loveday-Donovan, Autumn Martin, Kaitlyn Crews and Victoria Thompson.
fans gasped … That was awesome to experience!” To add a little pre-competition “excitement,” mistakes in the cheerleading uniform order placed last June weren’t fully corrected by the company until a few days before the state competition on Dec. 7. But there were also mistakes with the signs they were to hold up during their competition, which took a lot of last-minute scrambling to compensate for. Of the challenges, Loveday-Donovan, always the optimist, said, “Our girls work best under pressure. They are performers. If we had not changed the routine, I don’t know how they would have done. It was the nuance of things being new. We gave them something they practiced for two weeks and they killed it!” After being announced the state’s winners in
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their division, the girls were shocked, Loveday-Donovan said. “Last year, after performing, they kind of knew they were going to win,” she said. “This year was far more dramatic, with all the challenges of switching people around, the signs and the uniforms not coming in correctly – and we lost 12 seniors last year to graduation. We just dealt with a lot more adversity this year.” When asked whether winning a state championship a second time is just as exciting as the first, Loveday-Donovan said, “I don’t know that winning a state championship could ever get old. So many schools aspire to do that – if you took it for granted, it would be in vain. So many schools dedicate their time and effort. It absolutely felt just as good this year!”