Caroline Middle School Cheer Team wins national championship

The Caroline County Middle School Cheerleaders traveled to the University of Maryland April 23 to compete at the Cheerstarz National Championship. The CMS team, which had won a regional event two weeks prior, took home first place in the Intermediate Junior High division to become the first-ever National Champions in Caroline County’s school history. The 14-hour long competition drew almost 200 cheer teams and was held at the Xfiniti Center, home of the Maryland Terrapins.
Competitive cheer, which is very different from sideline cheer done at sporting events, is a fast-paced routine of tumbling, cheer jumps, stunts, pyramid formations, and dance—all performed to custom music. Head Coach Jenni Mastin-Heywood said the CMS team, which also does the sideline cheer for the school’s sports teams as well as pep rallies, had practiced their competitive routine for less than four months.
“We always focus on the basics first and foremost, and we wouldn’t give them a routine until they mastered those basics,” Mastin-Heywood said, “even if it meant they lost time to practice the routine itself. We believe in that, and they proved it works.”
Coach Craig Heywood said he asked the cheerleaders what they wanted to accomplish with their competitive season and they all agreed they wanted to beat their local rival. Heywood said he challenged them to dream bigger, then told them that he and Jenni would take the team to nationals so they could beat everybody.
“I’m pretty sure they thought I was joking, but they did just that,” he said.
This is the first year the Heywoods, who own Infinity Training Center in Caroline County, have coached school cheer. They took the positions at the last minute because the school did not have a replacement for the previous coach and didn’t want to loose their cheer program.
“It is very different from the Allstar Cheer that we do at Infiniti and we had a lot to learn very quickly,” Mastin-Heywood said. “These young ladies made it easy for us. They all worked extremely hard at every practice and we couldn’t be any more proud of them. They definitely earned this win and their new National Champion jackets.”