Unlikely champs of cheer
SUMMIT TWP — JoLynn Clouse and Crystal Walker passed the torch.
A group of Saint Wendelin dance club members certainly ran with it.
That dance club turned into a competitive cheering team less than four months before entering the 11th Annual Saint Michael Cheerleading Competition at Kennedy Catholic High School in Hermitage last month.
“We formed this dance club last year, just to give any girls interested an extra-curricular activity, something for after school,” said Clouse, the school's principal. “This year, we saw that Saint Michael competition and decided it'd be fun to take that club and form a team out of it.
“It was a fund-raiser for them, so it was a nice opportunity to help another Catholic school. There were no cuts. Everybody participated.”
And they won — after only nine practices.
The competition featured 225 cheerleaders from public and parochial schools from the Cleveland, Erie, Pittsburgh and Youngstown diocese.
Saint Wendelin, with 23 girls ranging from second through eighth grade, competed in the Elementary Junior Varsity division and was by far the largest squad at the competition.
“Most of the squads had 10 girls or so,” Walker said. “JoLynn knows how to choreograph and she came up with a routine that included all of our girls.”
Walker's daughter, second-grader London, was one of them.
Clouse coached Walker during the former's all-star cheerleading days. She also coached Walker's East Butler Bulldog cheerleading unit in the old Butler Area Midget Football League.
“When JoLynn decided to do this, she asked me to help out,” Walker said. “It's been fun working with her and these girls.”
Clouse admitted she was hoping the girls would bring “a little trophy” back to the school.
She wasn't expecting much more.
“None of these girls had ever done anything like this before,” Clouse said. “They had no gymnastics experience. They had no cheerleading experience. They had never competed in anything.
“It was so innocent. When they announced the fourth-place team and it wasn't them, they thought they had lost. They had no concept of what was going on, the process of the whole thing, at all.”
When Saint Wendelin was announced as the champion, “those kids and parents practically mobbed the poor girl handing them the trophy,” Clouse added, laughing.
The trophy was the first one Saint Wendelin landed in any competition since 1987.
“That was something won in golf ... that was the most recent one in our trophy case,” Clouse said.
Now — after 33 years — it has company.
“This is a big deal here,” Clouse said.
Individually, the team also landed a third-place medal for jumping and a second-place for tumbling.
Members of the team include Haley Hoelzer, Emma Fleeger, Jenna Fleeger, Mila Rimer, Zoey Zandarski, Aurora Neff, Addison Kriley, Alaina Smith, Lydia Maley, Natalie Welter, Dakota Viehmann, Natalie Baldauf, London Walker, Isabella DiDomenico, Aspen Viehmann, Isabell Manchester, Anastasia Manchester, Zoe Waller, Kaitlyn Dick, Campbell Clouse, Cadence Rettig, Gretchen Foehringer and Casey Clouse.
Saint Wendelin is hoping this isn't a one-shot deal.
“I guess I'll be coming back to help out next season,” Walker said. “JoLynn wants to make this bigger and better. And I believe she will.”
