Photo Provided The St. Clairsville High School Cheerleading Team celebrates its fifth consecutive title at the OASSA Cheerleading State Championships. In the front row, from left, are Hailey McCort, Maddie Kleinendorst, Jennifer Mazgaj, Cassidy Wolfe, Jessica Waggle, Caton Kadylak, Alexa Shields and Paige McGlothlin; back row from left, Sophia Smith, Elaina Baker, Rachel Sorge, Alexi Kindler, Jade Myers, Emily Baire, Mallory Marconi, Madelyn Conaway, Ashley Greenwood and coach Shawn Tomlan.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The St. Clairsville High School Cheerleading Team is cultivating a long tradition of winning.

For the past 10 years the team has won first place at the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference Cheerleading Championships, and members recently won the title at the Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators Cheerleading State Championships.

The OASSA cheering championships were held in Columbus on March 4-5 at Ohio State University’s St. John Arena, with 78 schools in five divisions competing. The St. Clairsville Red Devils competed against 19 schools in Division 3.

Coach Shawn Tomlan said her team has been participating in the state competition for the past six years, winning the last five years and placing second during its first year competing.

“It was a learning experience the first year. Ohio’s style of cheerleading is completely different from what we were used to at the OVAC competition. We adjusted after the first year and came back and won,” said Tomlan.

To qualify for the Ohio state competition, a team must perform at an OASSA regional competition. Regional judges decide only whether a team qualifies or not for the state championship. St. Clairsville hosted a regional competition this year in which several schools performed.

“We hosted a small regional competition, having 16 or 17 schools. Most schools that host a regional competition are in larger cities than St. Clairsville, so they have more schools attend their competition,” Tomlan said. “The state sends qualified judges to the regional competitions so there is no local bias in judging.”

Tomlan said there have been big changes in the music that the teams are able to use due to copyright laws, but the team’s choreographer, A.J. Blankenship, has helped them through those changes. The two-and-a-half minute competition routine must include a crowd involvement cheer, tumbling and dance.

“Our choreographer lives in New York City but is from Ohio. He was an Ohio State University cheerleader and now does choreography for many other schools besides ours. We’ve had a tremendous amount of success with him as our choreographer,” Tomlan said.

In the state competition, the Red Devil’s cheering team garnered a total of 364 points out of a possible 400 and beat the second-place team by 25 points, according to Tomlan.

“We had the second-highest score out of all five divisions. Centerville, which is a Division I school, received a total of 366.5 points,” Tomlan said.

Tomlan noted she is very proud of her team and what the members have accomplished. Although the Buckeye State does not recognize cheerleading as an official sport, she said she expects that to change at some point in the future.

“We won OVAC 10 consecutive years and state for five years. I’ve coached for many years, which has given me the time to build a program. I have been blessed with amazing girls with great families now and in the past,” Tomlan noted. “We start in July and are still competing in March. No other sport has a longer season than we do. We spend a lot of time together. We are really like a family.”