(Enlarge) The Long Reach cheerleading team won top honors at the 2008 Howard County Fall Cheerleading championship Oct. 30 at Hammond High School. (Staff photo by Matt Roth)

Notre Dame's football team was once encouraged to "win one for the Gipper;" Long Reach just wanted to win one for the "regular" cheerleader.

"We have a few all-stars, but not as many as the teams that traditionally win," said Long Reach coach Elisabeth Rice after her team captured its first fall county cheerleading championship. All-star cheerleaders are club cheerleaders.

"People think you've got to have all-stars to win. ... It's nice to have them and it's nice to sprinkle them in," Rice added.

Long Reach has four all-stars on its 23-member squad.

Using an energetic routine, the Lightning easily won the competition Oct. 30 at Hammond High School. Long Reach scored 296.5 points out of a possible 360. River Hill (278.5) edged Atholton (278) for second place. See High School Wrap-up for more results.

Long Reach won the winter county championship last year, but the winter competition is considered diluted because the all-stars often compete for their clubs and not their high schools.

Unlike most of the squads at Hammond, Long Reach started its roughly 2 1/2-minute routine with a cheer instead of music.

"It's so much easier," said Ashley Ross, one of four Long Reach captains. "You can get your words out; it's not like when you are dying in the middle of the routine."

The Lightning's routine had a couple of other unique features. The first stunt, something that the team added the week prior to the championship, was a one-man lib.

"It's difficult and it shows strength," said Kathia Castillo, another captain. "Usually it's a male stunt, girls don't normally do it in high school."

The Lightning also did a pyramid that had the fliers changing levels and scissor-kicking their legs.

Long Reach had placed second by 1.5 points in the large school category at the Howard County Autumn Invitational a week before the county championship and that got the team's attention.

"It made us work even harder in practice," Castillo said.

And it brought the team together. "We were having issues with being a team," said Corri Smith, another captain.

Ashley Phillips, the fourth captain, did not compete due to a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

On the cheerleading scene, Long Reach considers itself an underdog.

"We don't look like a typical all-American cheerleading team," Ross said.

The team is ethnically diverse and, according to Castillo, many on the squad hadn't cheered before high school.

"We didn't go in (to the championship) expecting anything, we just wanted to beat ourselves" Ross said. "We just had the motivation to kick butt."

"They wanted it really bad," said Rice. "We do have a goal and this is the first step."

Long Reach, River Hill and Atholton advanced to the South Region championship Wednesday, Nov. 5 at Great Mills High School. That competition was too late for this edition. The top four teams at the regional meet go to the state tournament Saturday, Nov. 8 at North Point High School.

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