Completing the season sweep of the three divisional meets, the Oxford Wildcats competitive cheer program captured their second straight Oakland Activities Association (OAA) White title on Feb. 8 at the Ian Smith Gymnasium.
Each of the first two OAA White competitions on Jan. 16 and 30, respectively, made up 25 percent of the divisional standings. The final league meet, showing the importance of improving as a team throughout the season, accounted for the remaining 50 percent.
Posting a total of 745.76 points, the Wildcats held off the second-place Avondale Yellow Jackets (741.32) by more than four points. The Royal Oak Ravens went home in third-place, while the West Bloomfield Lakers and Clarkston Wolves rounded out the top-five.
Just as they have all season, Oxford raced out of the gate in the first round, scoring 10 points higher than Avondale.
“Round one has been good to us,” head coach Alanna Weber said. “We just have a few small changes to make our scores more competitive headed into districts, because that is kind of our next focus.”
The Wildcats finished the second round in third-place and the third, and final, round in the second position. This round two showing was a step down from where the team had hoped, but there was a circumstantial explanation.
“We were only the second team to perform in the round and the first team doing tucks,” assistant coach Kelly Westbrook pointed out.
“When you’re going that early in a round, sometimes, it can be a little bit tough because the judges don’t know where to score you – especially when we were one of only two teams throwing tucks. I think if it were different, and we were going later in the round, we would’ve scored better.
“Watching some of our videos, we performed at least as well as, or maybe even better, than we did in the second league meet, but our score was nine points lower. We still have some work to do in our second round, but it was better than our score showed in this one.”
The girls have one more invitational, beginning at 8 a.m. at Brandon High School on Saturday (Feb. 15), to fine-tune their craft before Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) district competition gets underway. Taking place on Feb. 22, Oxford’s district festivities will be hosted by Grand Blanc High School.

Weber named OAA
White Coach of the Year
Alanna Weber was named Coach of the Year in the OAA White on Feb. 8. She was honored with the award shortly after her Wildcats clinched their league title.
“Kelly (Westbrook, assistant coach) won it with me,” the soft-spoken Weber said.
A graduate of Oxford High School and Oakland University, Weber is in the second year of her second stint at the helm of the program. In addition to her time with the Wildcats, she coached in South Lyon, Clawson and Birmingham, winning four MHSAA district championships along the way.

Two flyers sign to cheer collegiately
Anne Cobble and Cassie Darling, both seniors and flyers for Oxford, inked their National Letters of Intent (LOI) to continue their careers as student-athletes at the collegiate level.
Cobble will take her talents to Alma College.

“She’s a really talented flyer, she’s going to do great things for that program,” Weber said of Cobble. “Last year, we had Brenna Maurer go to Alma, too, so, they’re going to be teammates again and it’s going to be fun watching them continue their cheering careers together.”
Darling will join the Eastern Michigan Eagles in 2020-21.
“What we stressed to the Alma and the Eastern Michigan coaches was both girls have great attitudes and are easy to work with,” Westbrook shared. “Anne and Cassie are both leaders on our team, as well as awesome student-athletes.”