I’m In Love With This Team...

...and very disappointed they don’t go to UCA. It’d be a whole new ballgame if any/all of the competitors at this state comp showed up in Florida.

Anyone know of any other sleeper teams that are crazy good but unable to compete at UCA?

 

They’re good but that’s not a UCA-scoresheet routine. They would not do as well on it. Their cheer would score miserably.

 

Ravenwood 2017 would have mopped the floor with them.

 

Oh yeah that routine could not translate. But those skills would.

 

Ah yes Ravenwood. Or, The Team With All Those Fulls. Touché.

I did notice that for all their tumbling strength, this Lexington team had no standing fulls which I thought was weird since they were allowed. I’m pretty sure that’s why they were the runners up. That and maybe lack of stunt difficulty since double ups and tick stretches appeared to be nonexistent.

 

That’s Lexington High School from Lexington SC. They don’t go to UCA because in SC competitive Cheer is considered a sport with HSL sanctioned competitions and a state championship and therefore they cannot compete out of state. Pretty sure they have girls with standing fulls but standing fulls are just “oohhhh look what they did” vs having significant impact on the scoresheet.


For what it’s worth, I feel that they should have won last year over Dutch Fork


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Yeah I make it a point to watch that whole competition when it comes around each year. I figured there had to be some bureaucratic reason why NONE of the very capable competitors are ever at Nationals.

I agree about Dutch Fork. Why do you think Lexington lost?

 

I plead the 5th regarding my opinion why Lexington lost. If you remember this conversation on November 17th 2018 and what I think will happen, happens I’ll gladly share privately tho! The 5 A division in SC is definitely going to be phenomenal and interesting to watch this year

My niece actually competes HS in SC but not in their division thankfully. This will hopefully be her first year competing at state (her team typically makes state, but anything can happen!). Last year she was 7th grader on JV and this year she’s just an 8th grader on varsity so she’ll have plenty of other opportunities to qualify for state if they don’t make it.


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*Marks date in calendar*

 

Isn’t the inversion switch up illegal as all hell?

 

Gray area, and would depend on interpretation of the governing body.

Probably not illegal since it looks like someone is connected to her left foot or ankle (hard to see from a distance and on the small screen of my phone) all the way up until she is no longer inverted, which happens at about prep level.

It looks like a very well-done flaunting of a couple of gray areas in the rules. I’d say it would be heavily event-specific on how the interpreters saw it at any given competition. You might take it to a regional and everyone be ok with it, then take it to nationals, and get a “no no.” I would definitely send a video of it to any competition where I planned to use it.

On a side note, I remember a rule where each competitor had to start with at least one foot on the ground. The opening stuck out to me more than that switch up.

ETA: all that stuff about the height of the stunt where she becomes no longer inverted becomes less of a factor now that high-to-High tick ticks are legal

 

I could totally see them at NCA.

 

I really hate when comps can’t get their judges on the same page so a routine is OK’d all through regionals and then suffers at Nationals because judges don’t know what they’re doing. That’s complete BS. It’s really not a team’s problem if a comp can’t bother to get their employees to know what they’re doing.

That oversight almost cost my team a champ title one year. We were coming off our first title from the year before and looking to repeat, so a lot was on the line. After finalists were announced we saw we’d sustained a giant deduction that put us in last (in finals). My coach asked the judges why, and they said it was because of an illegal grip somewhere in our elite section. My coach said that at the four regionals qualifier comps we’d been to it was never even acknowledged as a problem, let alone a deduction. Tbeir response: “Oh well you should’ve sent a tape in.” Her response: “THEN WHAT IS THE POINT OF REGIONALS???”

Fortunately it turned out to be an easy fix and we still won. But that stress and confusion could’ve been avoided had USA just nailed down the rules and communicated them appropriately because those are kind of a big deal.

 

Coach’s fault not competition’s fault.

Coach should know rules backwards, forwards, inside and out. Coach should know without having to send in a video if something is likely to be questionable. The purpose of the video is twofold: 1) confirm what you already know and 2) have some type of documentation that you went through appropriate channels to get a final determination.

This is true in sports as well. When I umpired baseball, the number of coaches I dumped from a game was infinitesimal at the college and semi-pro ranks versus the travel ball, even super competitive travel ball. Virtually every argument starts with a coach that doesn’t know the rules.

 

If a rule is, “You need to cover your own booty because we can’t guarantee that our judges will be consistent,” that’s a terrible rule that rejects any responsibility for poor communication. That, to me, says the judges don’t know their own rules. One entire USA panel okays something and another panel says no? That’s just an embarrassing testament to how poorly run an organisation is.

That said, she learned her lesson that year and now she videotapes stuff. But the memory still riles me up. Girls work all year for a Nationals win... I would think that the judges could respect them enough to know their own rules, whether it’s at regionals or elsewhere. If they don’t, it’s literally like words have no meaning. The teams follow all the explicit rules to get to Nationals — even the stupid ones like no throwing props with “sharp edges” (come on... girls are doing standing fulls but we’re worried about the terror of a square sign going rogue?). I would like to think the judges could do us the honour of at least meeting us halfway.

It reminds me of that Cheer Perfection episode when CTR got a huge deduction because the judges couldn’t see the stunts in the back and “weren’t sure” if they were legal. Not even a “That’s for sure illegal, sorry our judges didn’t catch it sooner,” but a “We couldn’t see it so we’re not sure if it was illegal, but here’s a deduction anyway sorry not sorry lol.” Isn’t it their job to see the stunts? Isn’t that why were are multiple judges? At what point does the impetus fall on the judges to take some responsibility for their decisions? I swear to God, sometimes it’s like living with my undiagnosed schizophrenic roommate all over again.

Rant over. Time to glue rhinestuds on stuff and annoy the dog.