Brick Dragons Midget Cheer takes second in nationals, despite injuries

BY WAYNE WITKOWSKI Staff Writer

Lori High-Martucci’s voice still broke with emotion after she came back to New Jersey from the Brick Dragons Midget Cheer team secondplace finish in the Pop Warner national championships at Walt Disney World’s Wide World of Sports on Dec. 11 at Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

“They gave the performance of a lifetime,” she said, as her voice wavered. “They were amazing. I could not be more proud of them.

“They are truly champions,” she said later, again choked up.

The cheer team was .82 points behind a team from Holmdel when they performed a day after the Dragons Dance team of coach Cathy Lindenbaum finished in fourth place in the nationals.

High-Martucci’s team battled adversity all the way through the postseason tournaments. The team finished in second place in the Jersey Shore League, in third place in the state championships where the top four teams qualify for regionals, and then being one of two teams to advance to the nationals with a second place finish in regionals.

In all of those tournaments, the team had to change its competition routine because of a member of its 35-girl squad became ill or injured.

But this time, it was even tougher.

Twice the team had to change its routine just before going out to perform because of a practice injury.

“I don’t think any team anywhere could change its routine two times like this minutes before a performance,” High-Martucci. said. “Those two girls are the main bases for us.”

The first mishap occurred when Hannah Ross broke her fibula during a tumbling pass during warmups minutes before the team was scheduled to perform its routine.

“An hour later, [the judges] gave us more time and we changed our routine, and they moved us [on the schedule] to perform last,” she said.

While fine-tuning the new routine, the squad’s pyramid formation came down near the end of the warmups. MacKenzie

Groschel was injured, removed on a stretcher and taken to a hospital in a neck brace, which traumatized many of the girls on the squad. Groschel later was diagnosed with a torn muscle in her neck and released to return over the weekend with her team. Ross stayed later and was slated to return on Dec. 15.

“We were thankful MacKenzie had feeling in her legs and arms, and now we know she’ll be fine,” High-Martucci said. “We had three options — come out with what we had, change the routine or not perform at all. So we decided to go ahead and move two girls into those spots who have never performed before and they had to learn everything in five minutes.”

“Everybody helped us,” she added. “We got so much support from Jersey Shore who was there, and the people who were there helping us was just so great. They talked to the girls and talked them through it. I couldn’t talk. I was emotionally drained.”

At the end of the routine, the team not only had perhaps its best performance of the year, especially under the circumstances, but got a standing ovation from the appreciative audience.

The cheerleaders realized how much their squad is truly a team as they triumphantly returned with their treasured trophy. They are making plans for a welldeserved celebration party in Brick before Christmas.