Sports
Grayslake Central Cheerleaders Claim First-Ever State Title
The Illinois High School Association state cheerleading competition was held this past weekend in Bloomington.
The results are in from this year's Illinois High School Association cheerleading competition with Lincoln-Way East, Belvidere North High School, Grayslake Central and Wilmington high schools all earning state titles in their respective divisions. For Grayslake Central's cheerleading squad, it was their first-ever state title. Their coach, Kelsey Pierotti, has been overseeing the team for the past seven years and said she had a good feeling early on about this year's team.
"I just could tell for months now that this was a really special team," she told the Daily Herald. "We really focused on one competition at a time, one week at a time, just to get ourselves to the state tournament."
Welcome home, state champs! https://t.co/WkPz9nltZv
— Grayslake Central (@Grayslake_Rams) February 3, 2019
Grayslake North's team also made it to the finals of the cheerleading competition and ended up in tenth place at state.
Find out what's happening in Grayslakefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Here is a look at how other teams that made it to the state finals on Saturday fared:
Large Team
Find out what's happening in Grayslakefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
| Place | Team | Score |
| 1 | Frankfort (Lincoln-Way East) | 91.56 |
| 2 | Chicago (Marist) | 90.57 |
| 3 | Lincolnshire (Stevenson) | 90.42 |
| 4 | New Lenox (Lincoln-Way West) | 89.87 |
| 5 | Joliet (West) | 88.91 |
| 6 | Naperville (Neuqua Valley) | 87.53 |
| 7 | Bartlett | 87.47 |
| 8 | New Lenox (Lincoln-Way Central) | 86.23 |
| 9 | Machesney Park (Harlem) | 85.12 |
| 10 | Huntley | 84.04 |
Coed Team
| Place | Team | Score |
| 1 | Belvidere (North) | 96.63 |
| 2 | Plainfield (South) | 93.43 |
| 3 | Fox Lake (Grant) | 93.24 |
| 4 | South Elgin | 91.77 |
| 5 | Buffalo Grove | 91.24 |
| 6 | Lockport (Twp.) | 89.44 |
| 7 | Joliet (Central) | 85.31 |
| 8 | Palos Heights (Shepard) | 84.56 |
| 9 | Aurora (Metea Valley) | 83.02 |
| 10 | Roselle (Lake Park) | 80.09 |
Medium Team
| Place | Team | Score |
| 1 | Grayslake (Central) | 90.09 |
| 2 | Oak Forest | 89.39 |
| 3 | Antioch | 89.03 |
| 4 | Crystal Lake (Central) | 88.47 |
| 5 | Lemont (H.S.) | 87.61 |
| 6 | Burlington (Central) | 86.57 |
| 7 | Washington | 86.04 |
| 8 | Hampshire | 85.91 |
| 9 | Highland | 83.46 |
| 10 | Grayslake (North) | 82.32 |
Small Team
| Place | Team | Score |
| 1 | Wilmington | 87.69 |
| 2 | Dwight | 85.40 |
| 3 | Poplar Grove (North Boone) | 85.16 |
| 4 | Johnsburg | 84.20 |
| 5 | Carterville | 83.63 |
| 6 | Breese (Central) | 82.87 |
| 7 | Greenville | 79.67 |
| 8 | Paris | 79.57 |
| 9 | Rockford (Lutheran) | 79.09 |
| 10 | New Berlin | 77.74 |
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.