Chaney cheerleaders to compete

March 7, 2008 at 1:17a.m.

The squad has been walking off with top honors in regional competitions.

YOUNGSTOWN — Eleven young women from Chaney High School are headed to the Cleveland Convention Center this weekend to show they have the right stuff to bring home a national cheerleading championship.

The young women are members of the Chaney High School cheerleaders’ competition squad and will compete in the Champion Cheer Central Inc. Open Nationals Saturday and Sunday at the Cleveland Convention Center.

The squad has been walking away with top awards in competitions across the region, and the trip to the nationals is the high point of the season.

The full cheerleading squad, most commonly seen at football and basketball games, stands at 20 members and features students who were at both Chaney and Wilson high schools last year. Wilson was closed and half of its students re-assigned to Chaney this year.

The competition squad, with 13 members, takes its show on the road, putting its skills up against other high school squads and generally walking away with top honors.

Only 11 of its members have been selected to participate in the nationals, said coach Romell Williams, a former Youngstown State University cheerleader. They’ll perform two routines in the competition.

They’ve spent a lot of time and hard work getting to where they are, he said, noting they hold practice sessions after school two or three days each week.

The squad has three senior co-captains — Kayla Pegues and Sarah Zikeli, who were at Chaney last year, and Ralaina Logan, who was at Wilson.

Williams said three girls from Wilson made the squad this year.

Logan was varsity co-captain at Wilson and wasn’t sure she would be accepted at Chaney.

“We were like big rivals,” she recalled but said that rivalry never surfaced after she got to Chaney.

“I call them my sisters now,” she said of the other cheerleaders.

The captains say their squad is ready for the nationals.

“We’ve been practicing real hard,” Zikeli said, adding, “It couldn’t have been done without our coach. He’s more than a coach.”

He’s demanding, but the squad still has time to have fun, Pegues added.

The girls runs laps, do endless numbers of abdominal crunches and sit-ups and attend mandatory gymnastics lessons.

Other members of the competition squad going to nationals are: seniors Angel Gilmore and Kelli Young; juniors Jamie Ruffin and Shanay Jacobs; and sophomores Mone’ Perry, Kara Guyer, Telasia Banks and Shay Jarmon.

Their season began with a summer camp at the University of Akron, where they walked away with both the camps’ Tradition and Spirit awards.

Zikeli and Banks were also named All Stars, and Zikeli won the Top Cheerleader Award, giving her the opportunity to become a coach and travel throughout the country during the Universal Cheerleaders Association’s camp season.

The squad later took first place and the Judge’s Award at a competition at Stow Monroe Falls High School, first place and the Spirit Award at Woodridge High School and first place and the Judge’s Choice Award at Windham High School. They also got the Grand Champion label at Windham.

They most recently took first place and the Spirit Award at a competition at Howland High School.

gwin@vindy.com