Giving their best performance of the season, the youthful SCHS Lady Gamecock cheerleaders of Vette Rountree and Mary Helen Harrison saw their squad claim a third place finish at the Region 3AA competition at Mercer University Nov. 5. 
With their lofty finish, the squad will now participate in the state sectionals Friday at the Columbus City Auditorium.
With the eight region champions automatically qualifying for the state finals on Saturday, the top eight from Friday’s competition will advance to join them.
“Everyone is very excited about getting to go to state,” Rountree said. “If we can have a repeat performance of region at sectionals on Friday, we have a very good chance of making it to the finals on Saturday.” 
The sectional competition for A, AA, and AAA will begin at 9 a.m. Friday and continue until all squads have competed. The AAAA and AAAAA sectionals are set to begin at 2 p.m. The Lady Gamecocks are scheduled as the 50th team to compete though there are seven vacant slots ahead of them.
“We had a great performance yesterday,” said Rountree Sunday. “This performance is by far the best that the girls have done all year. They really worked as a team. We had one fall on stunts, but that group got right back up and put the stunt back up and finished strong.”
“This is what we have been waiting for with this group,” Harrison said. “You hope that a young team will get better as the season goes on. You also know that there will be good days and bad days. This was their best day so far. I think they can get better.”
Bleckley County claimed the region title, finishing with 194 points as the judges gave unusually low scores to every routine. Dodge was second with 182 followed by the SCHS 182.
“We were tied for second place with Dodge County before our five-point deduction for the fall,” Rountree said, “and would have had second once the high and low scores were added back in.”
“Dodge County does not have a high level of difficulty, but executed their routine without any major mistakes on Saturday,” Harrison said.
“We felt all season that if our girls could execute a solid routine we would edge out East Laurens and SEB,” Harrison said, “and it took us until region to do that. We did not throw a perfect routine on Saturday but we came close. This was the best our girls have done all season and we were all very excited with the third place finish.”
Judges gave SCHS highest marks in showmanship (89 percent), cheer/chant (80 percent), formations/transformations (78 percent), and dance (75 percent). Despite the fact that no squad scored as many as 200 points Saturday, all Lady Gamecock scores were above the 50 percent mark, unlike their final regular season competition Oct. 29.
Rounding out the region standings were Southeast Bulloch at fourth with 180; East Laurens with 172; Dublin with 160; and Swainsboro with 135. Jefferson County and Laney do not field competitive cheer squads.
Showing their improvement on the season, the Lady Gamecocks have twice finished behind East Laurens at competitions and once behind Dublin. The squad also has twice finished behind SEB.
“Both SEB and East Laurens did not have their best day on Saturday,” Harrison said. “SEB had one stunt fall and overall looked very shaky and tired throughout their routine. East Laurens had two stunts fall and one side of their pyramid did not hit. The mistakes that East Laurens made caused their degree of difficulty to drop and overall execution scores were low.”