The Howell High School Pompon squad took 3rd at the Mid-American Pompon High Kick Championship on Nov 9th at the SVSU Ryder Center. Howell’s team finished 3rd with 289 points, right behind Garden City who finished 2nd with 291.5 points. Plymouth took home the gold in this competition with the winning count of 294.5 points. This comes after Howell’s 1st place finish last year at the High Kick championship in medium varsity.

“We think we deserved that spot [3rd] because it’s really just up to what the judges like better since they’re all themes and we always talk about how we get what we work for so we decided other teams must have just worked harder,” sophomore Marissa Fargo says.

The competition is broken into different groups of teams based off their size (number of people) containing small varsity, medium varsity, and large varsity. They are also classified by their age ranging from middle school all the way to the collegiate level with teams like Michigan State University, University of Michigan, and Grand Valley State University. The competition is open to every and all teams that choose to compete.

Howell was a member of the Large Varsity competition moving up a level, now competing against other large varsity high school squads at a higher skill level. These teams include some familiar faces from the KLAA like top twelve finishers South Lyon (12th – 262.5), Livonia Franklin (10th – 271.5), Westland John Glenn (6th – 276), Livonia Churchill (4th – 284), and top finisher Plymouth (1st – 294.5).

“I like the higher competition, teams that are more at our skill level. It’s good playing these teams that we’ll go against later at states,” sophomore Sierra Star says.

This type of finish against quality opponents helps to distinguish Howell as one of the KLAA’s finest along with being one of the state of Michigan’s best pompon teams yet again with the likes of the Garden City, Heritage, and Novi varsity teams with a combined 21 State Championships in the last 25 years.

Next for Howell’s pompon team Northville High School for regionals at Northville High School on Jan. 24. From there they will hopefully continue on to the State Pom Championship at The Breslin Center in East Lansing on the campus of Michigan State University on Feb. 8.

“Every year has new surprises but we are pretty dedicated so I think we will all work hard to achieve our goals. Usually High Kick placing is similar to states so we would hope to be in like the top five or so,” Fargo says.