Persistence pushes to near perfection
Glen Burnie, Chesapeake earn titles at winter state championships
Glen Burnie cheerleading screamed before it heard its name.
The huddle already trembled with anticipation. Crofton and Perry Hall had been the biggest threats to the Class 4A winter crown but both teams had just been assigned bronze and silver on the floor of APGFCU Arena. Behind them, Bel Air’s cheerleaders wiggled their fingers in congratulatory prayer.
Everyone knew it was theirs. But just not how much it had been theirs.
When they heard their score, “127.3,” the Gophers couldn’t help it. And when they heard their name, they became a hurricane of red and gray glitter, crashing into one another for dogpile hugs, legs flying carelessly as teammates lifted each other up in wild embraces.
“It’s the highest score we’ve ever gotten — 127 out of 130, that’s just crazy,” coach Jami McCoy said. “They’re so talented. It’s just amazing.”
Four years ago, Glen Burnie took its step into the upper tier of state cheerleading. And the then-underclassmen, now-seniors who cried into each others’ arms never looked back.
With the win, the Gophers swept county, region and state titles for the first time in program history.
“I freaked out,” senior Savannah Tasker said. “We finally did it.”
Lack of energy haunted Glen Burnie through the fall postseason following its fierce county championship win. It trailed the Gophers through the winter, too. McCoy tried everything to shake it. Nerves, she said in the past, had been part of it.
“We worked on everything in the gym. We showed video after video of the other teams,” McCoy said. “It paid off.”
And there were nerves abound on Tuesday — just not for the same reason.
An accident on I-95 stretched the hour trip from Glen Burnie to Bel Air to nearly three, and as the bus ride approached the event start time, stress threatened to win out over excitement.
They arrived just before start time, then watched fairly silently as nearly every other state team in 1A and 4A competed before them.
And when they hit the mat at last, it was as if they’d flipped the lever on 10,000 volts of electric
ity. Legs flung higher for jumps. Stunts played out without a single noticeable error. Pyramids towered with fiery fliers screaming from the top.
“It’s so unreal. We did it,” Tasker said. “We know we lost fall states and this states, we came with a different attitude, like, ‘Let’s really show them what we can do.’ And we did. Our cheer is always our downfall. This time, it was loud.”
Just before, Chesapeake claimed the Class 3A state title with a 123 score but a downfall of its own made Chesapeake coach Lisa Elliott so certain that gold would not belong to the Cougars.
Seventeen state titles gave Chesapeake dynasty status long ago. But this past fall and winter season, the Cougars’ rays of power dimmed. The program graduated 10 seniors. After surrendering the county championships to the
Gophers, Chesapeake failed to place at the fall 3A regionals.
The team refused to let that define a new era of obscurity, and rallied. Come the winter Class 3A states, Chesapeake resembled itself again. It rolled through its routine with a passion that moved with a feral beauty. That is, until the fall: a drop in one of the pyramids near the end.
The error stung worse when later when Linganore, the biggest threat to Chesapeake’s gold, seemed flawless.
So when the Lancers had their name called for second place by a 0.9 margin, tears burst through Elliott. They didn’t stop as her cheerleaders erupted in euphoria or as they accepted their medals.
Yes, there had been 17 titles before. But the 18th was different.
“I really didn’t think this was going to happen,” she said. “I didn’t even know what to think. Winning when you had an error isn’t a coach’s first choice, but lots of people in here were still saying they thought we had it. I think I’m still in shock.”
Like the Gophers, Chesapeake’s bus ride north was afflicted by closures. The Cougars barely had enough time to step foot in the arena before getting shuffled to the waiting area and perform.
“I think it was good. There was no time to worry, just, ‘Go, go,” Elliott said. “And that’s kind of how we’ve been practicing.”
Stunts, pyramids — everything hit. But what stood out to the coach most couldn’t be measured on a judge’s sheet: confidence.
This group, Elliott said, had always doubted itself, right up to the performance.
“But we had full faith in our team,” senior Ava Morris said. “Because we’ve been through so much this season, but we stuck together to get through it. This team has such a bond that I’ve never felt before. We have so much heart and we put it on the floor today.”
Chesapeake led the chants for each Anne Arundel
team that competed. Northeast physically did not join Chesapeake in the stands. Two weeks ago, the Eagles were blocked from performing in states, even after the Maryland Public Schools State Cheerleading Committee admitted in two emails to Northeast coach Katie Williams that one of its judges had made a scoring mistake during its regional competition.
But the Cougars were not going to leave their neighbors behind.
Every single Cougars cheerleader had an Eagles temporary tattoo stamped on their forearm. It had been the coaches’ idea senior Aliya Negron said, one that the team happily leaned into.
Negron cheered with “at least half” the Northeast team growing up, and was even meant to attend the other Pasadena school but transferred to Chesapeake. The bitter sorrow Northeast felt after learning its score would not be changed was a feeling Negron shared.
“They hit a perfect routine,” she said,” and I know how hard they worked and all the stuff they went through.
“They deserve to be here. We all come from the same place — Dirty ‘Dena. If any of us, any of us from Anne Arundel County win, we’re all happy.”
In the 3A, South River finished fourth with 118.8. In 4A, Crofton’s silver came via a 124.9 score, while Severna Park placed fifth with 113.9, Broadneck sixth with 113.4 and North County seventh with 110.55.