Team Size And Scoring

[cheerparentnw]

We just finished our first comp of the season, a 2-day comp with Summit bids. Our team wasn't close to a bid, and shouldn't have been, so that is not what this is about.

The team with the highest score in the entire competition (scored a 98!) was a level 3 team of 7 kids. The team was very clean and good creativity for what you can do with 7 kids. But 7 kids means only 1 flyer for all stunts, and the pyramid was basically one flyer and another kid sitting on a base's shoulders.

This probably checks all of the boxes for scoring, but I hope this doesn't become a trend or strategy for teams in the future. It just seems like there should be some benefit of having multiple stunts to worry about stunt timing, synchronization, ripple effects, etc. Obviously if you can score 98 with one stunt group, there is no downside, so why would a team take chances on building a larger team and risk deductions related to timing? The one aspect I do like about the International Divisions is that mandatory team size range of 16-24 kids. It makes the comparison for scoring much easier. Maybe D1 teams should have a higher minimum size than 5?

 

[alpaca]

I have seen teams like this before. Technically they are very strong and they are hitting the scoresheet. But I've always wondered what their performance scores are because to me, they are not as interesting to watch.

 

[DonnaM]

There’s a downside, though, too-one kid out due to illness or injury, and your one stunt can’t go up at all. My CP used to cheer rec, and at times her team was this small-and it was not at all odd to have to cross compete someone at the last minute from a team in a different division (sometimes not even from the same program) just to let a stunt go up at all. A team at the large side of “small” could have one group switch to tumbling during stunts and still meet the minimum, but those 5-7 kid teams were kind of stuck. One reason why we switched to All Star was because of a lack of people to build the higher level, older age group rec teams.

 

[mischiefmanaged]

There are advantages and disadvantages for both really small teams (5-7) and larger teams. CP has been on teams with 11-14 kids on them but has also been on teams with 6. When she was in Rec cheer she was on teams with around 20 on them before. This year she is on one again with only 6 due to a combination of low enrollment numbers and kids lacking the skills.

What I’ve noticed it’s easier to hide mistakes on larger teams. If someone is a fraction of a second off your going to notice it on a team if 5-7. If a stunt falls there goes your stunt points, not just a deduction but you don’t get points at all. Same with pyramid if it falls your left with a shoulder sit so no pyramid points. It’s something CP’s coach really stresses that those stunts have to not only go up but stay up.

It’s also more noticeable on smaller teams if they don’t have full team tumbling.

CP’s team does a lot of stunts with one base, back and flyer to get the synchronization points. They’ve also done single man stunts without a back.