It has been a prosperous year for Valley Athletics, and their second last competition of the year was no different for the Muswellbrook based gym.
Cheerbrandz is a state wide competition that was held in Sydney last month and nine teams from Muswellbrook entered.
“We did very well, two of our teams got grand champions, and then one of those teams got Super Grand Champion,” Brianna Ritchie, one of the Valley Athletics owners said.
“There were three competitions in one weekend, one in Queensland, one in New South Wales and one in New Zealand, Super Nationals Grand Champion means that we scored the highest in that division across all three venues.”
It was the senior hip-hop group that achieved this massive honour, and the youth cheer team who topped their division at the New South Wales event.
“We were so pumped, I think we were all in shock to be honest,” Brianna shared with a laugh of the Super Grand Champion win.
“Youth cheer have worked really hard in the past few months, they were coming last at the start of the year and they’ve come into training and they worked really hard, and hard work pays of.”
The hard work involves reviewing judges feedback of the various routines and working on the skills that need it, so that by the next competition they have hopefully ironed out the issues that need improvement.
Other results for the event were first place for senior cheer, second place for open lyrical and third for both mini cheer and mini hip-hop.
There is one more competition, and a local showcase, to go before the end of the year for Valley Athletics.
Brianna shared they are grateful to have such a committed group of families who understand the need to work hard for the results they are chasing.
“We’re really transparent with our families and our kids, and we give them that feedback from the that what the judges are saying, we read that all together,” she explained.
“Then they will talk about things that they feel like they could work on, and what they need to do, so it’s a collaborative conversation and then we get into training, and then hopefully we don’t make the same mistakes next time.”
-JEM ANSHAW
