The agonizing part about win streaks is you DO NOT want to be the cause of one ending.
That’s why 15 young girls sporting St. Clairsville Scarlet & Gray sat huddled together inside WesBanco Arena for 90 minutes in a near panic, hoping against hope that they didn’t blow it.
The Red Devils entered the OVAC Cheerleading Championships with a 12-year win streak in Class 4A and a load of confidence, but a seemingly minor mistake nearly brought that legacy, and all their countless hours of hard work, crashing down.
Or so they thought.
The Unthinkable Happened
In the midst of another near flawless routine, the St. C. cheerleaders were performing the cheer portion of their routine and prepared to drop the poms and transition back to more tumbling.
It’s a routine they’d drilled and drilled, and a move as simple as throwing your poms away turned nightmarish in a hurry when one of the thrown poms hit another girl in the back, falling to the middle of the floor.
“It just dropped right there in the middle of the floor,” St. Clairsville coach Shawn Tomlan recalled. “They’re told if it drops to pick it up and get it out of the way, but nobody did that.
“If you step on it, points get deducted because it’s a safety violation.”
The Devils longtime coach had flashbacks from several years ago when her team lost 25 points in deductions. They still won that year, despite some controversy over scores. Could they be so lucky again?
The coach, like her team, began to worry. Further compounding her afternoon was the fact that her mother was taken to the emergency room the night before and was still receiving care at Wheeling Hospital while the competition was taking place. Unable to be two places at once, Tomlan’s husband and sister were at the hospital as she couldn’t abandon her girls at their time of need.
Now the coach and her team sat in agony, wondering and waiting if this was the end.
“They were devastated because the competition was tough, and we didn’t know how many points we would lose,” Tomlan said. “Is this the end of our streak?”
For the 13th time in a row, the Red Devils name was called as Class 4A champions.
That 10-point deduction wasn’t enough to derail their title hopes.
Rigorous Preparation Pays Off
Long strings of success can often lead to complacency because winning becomes expected.
Those thoughts never entered the mind of Tomlan or her girls. They come to work. And demanding perfection in practice and of their routines can help keep the wheels spinning on the track when an errantly thrown pom threatens to derail the train.
“I’ve always taught my girls to work hard for what we get,” Tomlan said. “We never go in with the attitude that we’ve already won. We have to work for it, earn it, deserve it.
“There are a lot of good teams out there, no matter how strong our program is,” she said. “We’re not entitled to anything. Before we take the floor to complete, I remind them to not settle for good when great is available.”
A rigorous practice schedule that begins during the summer and ends in February or March puts her girls to the test both mentally and physically. Anyone who brushes aside the difficulty of the preparation and time demands on these girls as “eh, it’s just cheerleading” is sadly mistaken.
“The girls’ routines get harder every year and with the tumbling that goes into it,” Tomlan said. “I believe we had every ankle and wrist taped at every practice and competition.
“All the jumping and tumbling is a lot for these cheerleaders to take—day in and day out. At the end of their very long season, they are entitled to a well-deserved break.”
Growing Tradition
Tomlan has taken a year or two off but has around 20 years of experience with the team. Thirteen titles in a row and 16 total make the Devils one of the top cheer programs in the valley.
They are also multiple state championship winners, including the new competition this season put on by the Ohio High School Cheerleading Coaches Association, the Best in the State (BITS) competition. They finished first in Division III in the inaugural event.
Success breeds success, and young girls in the district know that if they want to grow up one day and earn a spot on the squad, then the hard work begins early.
“Usually by the time they are in middle school, these kids are already into tumbling classes,” Tomlan said. “People know what our program is like, so the earlier their child starts tumbling classes, the better.
They know how good our program is and if your daughter wants to be a cheerleader, you can’t start tumbling in the eighth grade.
“As competitive as we are, you almost need to start in elementary school. It wasn’t like that years ago, but tumbling is a big part of the program now.”
But they do tumble well. And they adapt well.
Tomlan noted that this year’s competition was the worst she’s seen for injuries and injuries. A concussion, broken hand, a surgery, and almost the entire team taking turns having the flu made it very difficult to prepare for the upcoming competitions.
But they persevered and pulled it off flawlessly, minus that one errant pom.
When you expect perfection, oftentimes, a little less than can still be good enough.
