Last night, the Clark Clan, Aunt Jennifer and most of the substantial Robbins family made the trek out to Millbrook High School in Winchester, VA to watch the BDHS Tigers successfully defend their VHSL Northwestern District crown in competition cheer. Kellie's team had breezed through the regular season competition and before they took the floor, they had already earned the right to represent their district in the Regional Championships next week. Despite this guarantee, it was nice to add yet another District title to the wall of honor in the school gym.
The real news of the meet was the noticeable improvement by the second place team, the Warriors of Sherando. They had finished a distant second to the Tiger in both of the regular season events, but clearly showed up last with their game faces on. This was clearly noted in this article which appeared in today's The Winchester Star. Clearly Brentsville's road to the Regionals just got a little tougher, but that's how it is supposed to be.
Having said that, a clear round of applause is due Kellie and her teammates on another great year of competition.
Tracy has made several efforts to get some publicity for the reigning 2007 Class AA champions and due entirely to her efforts, the Prince William County News and Messenger sent a reporter to cover last night's events. I had submitted a short article to several of the local papers to make sure that Brentsville's defeat of the all of the larger PWC AAA schools did not go unnoticed, and they are planning a bigger article at the end of the month as they increase their coverage of BDHS's road to States in 2008. This morning, a condensed version of what I submitted along with one of my team pictures made the paper announcing the 2008 All-County champions. Today, Tracy sent a sample of team action shots from my portfolio for use in the article due later this month.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Tracy's New Dog
Today, Tracy and I completed our adoption of the little guy pictured above. Chesney comes to us from Dachshund Rescue of North America. Due to continued exposure to Ron and Amanda's Dachshund, Molly Ann, Tracy has wanted a Doxie for some time. Last weekend, we attended the DachsFest at the Price William County fairgrounds where the DRNA has a selection of dogs for adoption. This little guy was there and Tracy took to him immediately. She held him several times and during these sessions, she learned a little bit about him. He was rescued from an animal shelter in Johnson City, TN. The DRNA brought him to northern Virginia because the adoption rates are much higher in our area than in the south. Mission accomplished because a few days later, Tracy learned that he was still available and submitted an adoption application.
We passed our home inspection this morning and met the DRNA representatives about halfway outside Roanoke, VA this afternoon. For reasons unknown, Chesney is deaf, either from birth or from events leading up to his rescue by the DRNA. He seems to function quite well despite this and our experience with our older dog Skeeter, who is about 90% deaf has left us well-prepared for this. An added benefit is that because of this he is probably the quietest dog I have ever been around. He has been with us all day and hasn't barked yet.
His life should be in the upswing now that Tracy has been given the opportunity to spoil him. He is a little smaller than Pepper and certainly more low-slung.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Brentsville District High School Competition Cheer (Updated)
Tonight marks the third time that BDHS' competition cheer team has competed this year. I have hundreds of pictures that I will try and upload soon, but I have included a link to the shots taken from the first event. Update: New pictures from all events are now posted.
Park View High School - Invitational Tournament - BDHS kicked off their year by attending the Park View Invitational Tournament in Loudoun County, VA last Saturday. The event did not count against BDHS' district record, but was their first foray beyond High School AA competition. Tracy and I stayed at the event only long enough to see Kellie perform before we headed out to attend Major Brian Hoffmann's retirement party. Kellie has just recently been promoted to the first team and we did not want to miss her debut performance this year. We saw little of the tournament beyond the BDHS performance, but they started a little shaky this year and finished third in the event. Not a bad performance considering they were performing outside their comfort zone, but not one member of the team was satisfied with third. In fact, this was the first time that Kellie had not placed first in any competition she has entered as a BDHS cheerleader. I have processed the pictures from this event and have included a link to my online album below. Of special note was the attendance of Kellie's Godmother Jennifer. The restaurant pictures in the album were taken at the team kickoff breakfast at IHOP that morning.
Invitational Tournament - Park View High School
District Mini #1 - The real season kicked off last Tuesday night when Brentsville hosted the first District tournament of the year. We had the whole crew there that night as Jennifer, Ron & Amanda, and Bethany all attended the event. Vastly improved from their opening performance, BDHS returned to their winning ways and easily won their first points event of the year.
Northwest District Mini #1 - Brentsville District High School
All County Competition - Just tonight, Brentsvill entered the all-county competition cheer competition and competed against 10 other Prince William County High Schools. Brentsville does not normally attend county events for the simple reason that BDHS is a AA school and every other county school is AAA. Not resting on her state title laurels, the BDHS coach entered the event to expose the team to AAA competition. Kellie later reported that a judge asked the coach why she was entering the tournament. When she replied that she wanted her team to get some experience competing in the AAA bracket, the judge replied that the other county teams were in for a rude awakening. The judges were the same crew that had judged the Mini Tournament two nights ago.
The event was held at Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas. Despite being mere miles away from BDHS, this school is a world away from the confines of our little country school. SJ is ghetto fabulous in the worst kind of way. Brentsville was the first school introduced and walked on the floor to hail of boos from the other schools. Since we don't really compete with these schools regularly in athletics, the hail of boos was somewhat surprising. I can't really say why they were treated so poorly, but sometimes the heat of the crucible forges a new resolve. In fact, the booing was so bad, I thought for a second that we were in Philadelphia. Brentsville was the first school to perform and the crowd laid into them from the start. The little bastards next to me from Hylton High School were particularly obnoxious and took great pleasure in ridiculing the Tigers. I took care to pay careful attention to the HHS performance and was somewhat surprised by how poorly they performed. The first rule of cockiness is that you have to have a good team in order to pull it off. When you don't, you look foolish.
The Tigers have improved with each performance this year. In the end, and much to the chagrin of the boo birds, BDHS took first place in the competition. Just to top the night off and to show how classy the event was, the room where all the girls put their belonging during the event was left unlocked and all their bags were rifled through. The team lost an untold amount of cash, 2 iPods, and an iPhone. Kellie doesn't really take anything to these events, so she didn't lose anything.
Rather than dwell in the actions of a few bad seeds, let's remember that BDHS is the 2008 All-County Champion in Cheerleading. Kellie got the rare opportunity to compete against a good number of her friends that she went to Middle School with and the rest of the county found out that the reigning 2007 State AA champions were no fluke.
Prince William County - All County Cheer Competition - Stonewall Jackson High School
Update: Prince William county posted videos of the event on their website the next day and the links below will take you to them. The first video is their actual performance and the second highlights the reserved reaction to the announcement of the winner.
Video #1 - BDHS Performance
Video #2 - Announcement of the Winner
Park View High School - Invitational Tournament - BDHS kicked off their year by attending the Park View Invitational Tournament in Loudoun County, VA last Saturday. The event did not count against BDHS' district record, but was their first foray beyond High School AA competition. Tracy and I stayed at the event only long enough to see Kellie perform before we headed out to attend Major Brian Hoffmann's retirement party. Kellie has just recently been promoted to the first team and we did not want to miss her debut performance this year. We saw little of the tournament beyond the BDHS performance, but they started a little shaky this year and finished third in the event. Not a bad performance considering they were performing outside their comfort zone, but not one member of the team was satisfied with third. In fact, this was the first time that Kellie had not placed first in any competition she has entered as a BDHS cheerleader. I have processed the pictures from this event and have included a link to my online album below. Of special note was the attendance of Kellie's Godmother Jennifer. The restaurant pictures in the album were taken at the team kickoff breakfast at IHOP that morning.
Invitational Tournament - Park View High SchoolDistrict Mini #1 - The real season kicked off last Tuesday night when Brentsville hosted the first District tournament of the year. We had the whole crew there that night as Jennifer, Ron & Amanda, and Bethany all attended the event. Vastly improved from their opening performance, BDHS returned to their winning ways and easily won their first points event of the year.
Northwest District Mini #1 - Brentsville District High SchoolAll County Competition - Just tonight, Brentsvill entered the all-county competition cheer competition and competed against 10 other Prince William County High Schools. Brentsville does not normally attend county events for the simple reason that BDHS is a AA school and every other county school is AAA. Not resting on her state title laurels, the BDHS coach entered the event to expose the team to AAA competition. Kellie later reported that a judge asked the coach why she was entering the tournament. When she replied that she wanted her team to get some experience competing in the AAA bracket, the judge replied that the other county teams were in for a rude awakening. The judges were the same crew that had judged the Mini Tournament two nights ago.
The event was held at Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas. Despite being mere miles away from BDHS, this school is a world away from the confines of our little country school. SJ is ghetto fabulous in the worst kind of way. Brentsville was the first school introduced and walked on the floor to hail of boos from the other schools. Since we don't really compete with these schools regularly in athletics, the hail of boos was somewhat surprising. I can't really say why they were treated so poorly, but sometimes the heat of the crucible forges a new resolve. In fact, the booing was so bad, I thought for a second that we were in Philadelphia. Brentsville was the first school to perform and the crowd laid into them from the start. The little bastards next to me from Hylton High School were particularly obnoxious and took great pleasure in ridiculing the Tigers. I took care to pay careful attention to the HHS performance and was somewhat surprised by how poorly they performed. The first rule of cockiness is that you have to have a good team in order to pull it off. When you don't, you look foolish.
The Tigers have improved with each performance this year. In the end, and much to the chagrin of the boo birds, BDHS took first place in the competition. Just to top the night off and to show how classy the event was, the room where all the girls put their belonging during the event was left unlocked and all their bags were rifled through. The team lost an untold amount of cash, 2 iPods, and an iPhone. Kellie doesn't really take anything to these events, so she didn't lose anything.
Rather than dwell in the actions of a few bad seeds, let's remember that BDHS is the 2008 All-County Champion in Cheerleading. Kellie got the rare opportunity to compete against a good number of her friends that she went to Middle School with and the rest of the county found out that the reigning 2007 State AA champions were no fluke.
Prince William County - All County Cheer Competition - Stonewall Jackson High SchoolUpdate: Prince William county posted videos of the event on their website the next day and the links below will take you to them. The first video is their actual performance and the second highlights the reserved reaction to the announcement of the winner.
Video #1 - BDHS Performance
Video #2 - Announcement of the Winner
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)