High School Difficulty Vs. Clean Routine

[Onfire381]

My CP has been an All Star cheerleader for 5 years and I've read the rules for levels, know the deductions, etc. I can pretty much with good accuracy place the top 5 teams at a competition in order. This is my CP's 1st year as a varsity competitive cheerleader and I find the judging baffling to say the least. My daughter's team's routine is jam packed with difficulty including several standing tucks, tons of layouts, specialty passes, etc. I would say that their routine would definitely be competitive with a really good level 4 All Star squad. My problem is at the local level that it seems that a win goes to the team that has the cleanest routine without regard to the difficulty of another teams' routine. This is the 2nd time this has happed in the last couple of weeks and we lost to a team that didn't have even half the difficulty, tumbling and they put up 1 less stunt group and just had a basic pyramid. We weren't perfect, but had nothing major, a couple of bobbles and one of the flyers came down early. Sorry, now I'm ranting, but I was wondering if anyone else comes across this?

 

[cheernerd5678]

In HS, difficulty isnt always rewarded. I'm not sure where you are but in MO it's some ridiculous fraction of the score. Crowd leading, motions, cleanliness are so much more important on our scoresheet. We almost always have some of the hardest routines and full squad tumbling but at regionals got outscored by teams with no tumbling and prep cradles as their stunts. We also have ridiculous deductions here (we once lost 16 points for our uniform tops coming up while we tumbled - and there were only 14 girls on the team!)
Hs scoresheets are all over the place, but cleanliness and sharpness is always very important. I know how frustrating it is but that's just how it goes.


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[GForce]

I would say this happens often in HS cheer. Being tight and clean is something that wins, however so does difficulty. Usually I find that the teams with less difficult stunts tend to be cleaner, maybe to make up for those difficulty scores. I think it also depends on which score sheet you are using. I know my school always used the UCA score sheet at local competitions and obviously nationals and we scored really well. Where as for our state/regional score sheet, it is totally different. The score sheet was geared more towards crowd leading, so the best team difficulty didn't always win...usually it was just the teams with easy crowd leading routines who wins... Personally, I think it should be both, you need a difficult routine that is also clean and hits in order to win.

 

[charlie]

What it comes down to at the end of the day is who beat the score sheet the best. I've judged before and have thought team a is better than team b and enjoyed team a's routine more, but scored team b higher because they beat the rubric and won in areas where it counted the most. Gotta look at placements by how well a team attacked a score sheet


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[BuegeSmalls]

Was kind of upset with some UCA nationals placings in Small Varsity. Teams that hit clean routines placed much lower than I had thought below teams that I thought had the same amount of difficulty but had drops. Like I did not expect Kamehameha to get 18th, I was expecting closer to top 10 because they hit, and were super tight and had difficult skills. And I was sure Hazel Green was going to place top three because they were one of the only teams to hit in finals and their routine was difficult and the ended up in 6th :/

 

[Cheer_Explosion_Coach]

Was kind of upset with some UCA nationals placings in Small Varsity. Teams that hit clean routines placed much lower than I had thought below teams that I thought had the same amount of difficulty but had drops. Like I did not expect Kamehameha to get 18th, I was expecting closer to top 10 because they hit, and were super tight and had difficult skills. And I was sure Hazel Green was going to place top three because they were one of the only teams to hit in finals and their routine was difficult and the ended up in 6th :/

We hit clean all 3 rounds (Dutchtown High) and got 7th. I knew even with a perfect routine we couldn't place top 5 bc our stunt difficult score was low. At UCA the two sections that tend to separate teams is partner stunts diff/execution and pyramid execution. We scored 9.1 and 9.5 in executions but only 7.4 in stunt difficulty. Means a team that has 9.2 in difficulty can fall once and still place ahead of us. I'm ok with that, it's how the score sheet is set up. Here are the top 10 final scores in D1 small varsity if you wanted to know.

DPHS 92.8
Bloomington North 89.3
Pendleton Heights 88.9
Pine Richland 88.8
Hauppage 87.5
Hazel Green 87.1
Dutchtown High 86.4
East Ridge 85.4
New Ro 85.1
Marina 85.05



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[AScheer]

Was kind of upset with some UCA nationals placings in Small Varsity. Teams that hit clean routines placed much lower than I had thought below teams that I thought had the same amount of difficulty but had drops. Like I did not expect Kamehameha to get 18th, I was expecting closer to top 10 because they hit, and were super tight and had difficult skills. And I was sure Hazel Green was going to place top three because they were one of the only teams to hit in finals and their routine was difficult and the ended up in 6th :/

Our coaching staff was upset by the judging at UCA this year. Didn't seem to follow the norm and I was shocked by placements in many divisions, not just our own. We scored between 7.6 and 8 on stunt difficulty and had almost 9's in the execution, but we're baffled by some of the teams that placed higher. We knew our difficulty wasn't going to be as high as some of the teams but after the hot mess that was finals we thought we may move down a few spots and get 6th, 7th or 8th. We actually moved the other direction which was even more baffling. We hit, others fell all over the place. Then there was the 1 random team that fell, was a more basic skill level, and only had 2 out of 3 groups doing anything due to a missing girl in the routine. Some of the judging makes no sense this year and some of our comments made you wonder who they were watching. We were told to work on our jump timing, but good pointed toes. I'll be the first to tell you our toes were flexed and I've watched the video 100 times our timing couldn't have been more together!! Also had 3 issues with legalities judges after sending in our routine and getting the clear. If UCA is going to have safety and rules judges, then they need to know the current rules, which includes that low to high tick tocks are legal. Overall it was a great weekend, just wish there was some consistency in the judging!

 

[Onfire381]

Our coaching staff was upset by the judging at UCA this year. Didn't seem to follow the norm and I was shocked by placements in many divisions, not just our own. We scored between 7.6 and 8 on stunt difficulty and had almost 9's in the execution, but we're baffled by some of the teams that placed higher. We knew our difficulty wasn't going to be as high as some of the teams but after the hot mess that was finals we thought we may move down a few spots and get 6th, 7th or 8th. We actually moved the other direction which was even more baffling. We hit, others fell all over the place. Then there was the 1 random team that fell, was a more basic skill level, and only had 2 out of 3 groups doing anything due to a missing girl in the routine. Some of the judging makes no sense this year and some of our comments made you wonder who they were watching. We were told to work on our jump timing, but good pointed toes. I'll be the first to tell you our toes were flexed and I've watched the video 100 times our timing couldn't have been more together!! Also had 3 issues with legalities judges after sending in our routine and getting the clear. If UCA is going to have safety and rules judges, then they need to know the current rules, which includes that low to high tick tocks are legal. Overall it was a great weekend, just wish there was some consistency in the judging!

Yes, I think the biggest problem is with judging consistency. It 's just so frustrating because especially at the local level (when you want to prove to the area teams you have the skills) and not to be judged on them is really not fair. My cp's high school team is varsity large all music and we know for sure we beat the team that came in 1st, but they were clean except a couple of tumbling touchdowns (the highest tumbling skill they had was a ro/bhs/tuck) and that was only 1 girl and she touched down both times she did the pass. My cp's team as I have said has several standing tucks, several ro/bhs/tucks, several ro/bhs/layouts, and a couple of ro/bhs/whip/layouts. We also do a 5 jump sequence to back handsprings. The stunts are at a high difficulty level and the pyramid is also high difficulty. We had no drops, just a couple of bobbles and a girl came down early in the pyramid. All the tumbling hit and all the stunting, and jumps hit. So we are just baffled as to what happened. But it's was only a local competition and they were judged fairly at a bigger competition on their skill and difficulty level, but it's still kind of a slap in the face at the local level and I think it shakes the kids' confidence.

 

[Cheer_Explosion_Coach]

Our coaching staff was upset by the judging at UCA this year. Didn't seem to follow the norm and I was shocked by placements in many divisions, not just our own. We scored between 7.6 and 8 on stunt difficulty and had almost 9's in the execution, but we're baffled by some of the teams that placed higher. We knew our difficulty wasn't going to be as high as some of the teams but after the hot mess that was finals we thought we may move down a few spots and get 6th, 7th or 8th. We actually moved the other direction which was even more baffling. We hit, others fell all over the place. Then there was the 1 random team that fell, was a more basic skill level, and only had 2 out of 3 groups doing anything due to a missing girl in the routine. Some of the judging makes no sense this year and some of our comments made you wonder who they were watching. We were told to work on our jump timing, but good pointed toes. I'll be the first to tell you our toes were flexed and I've watched the video 100 times our timing couldn't have been more together!! Also had 3 issues with legalities judges after sending in our routine and getting the clear. If UCA is going to have safety and rules judges, then they need to know the current rules, which includes that low to high tick tocks are legal. Overall it was a great weekend, just wish there was some consistency in the judging!

What team and division? I think the problem is that we don't get breakdown of category scores. I thought our jump scores were low. We jumped amazing, but maybe we scored higher than most. I don't know because they won't tell us!




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[AScheer]

What team and division? I think the problem is that we don't get breakdown of category scores. I thought our jump scores were low. We jumped amazing, but maybe we scored higher than most. I don't know because they won't tell us!




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PM'ing you. Agree a breakdown would help a lot. Also dreaming about the day where scoresheets are open... probably will never happen though!

 

[Official OWECheer]

Yes, I think the biggest problem is with judging consistency. It 's just so frustrating because especially at the local level (when you want to prove to the area teams you have the skills) and not to be judged on them is really not fair. My cp's high school team is varsity large all music and we know for sure we beat the team that came in 1st, but they were clean except a couple of tumbling touchdowns (the highest tumbling skill they had was a ro/bhs/tuck) and that was only 1 girl and she touched down both times she did the pass. My cp's team as I have said has several standing tucks, several ro/bhs/tucks, several ro/bhs/layouts, and a couple of ro/bhs/whip/layouts. We also do a 5 jump sequence to back handsprings. The stunts are at a high difficulty level and the pyramid is also high difficulty. We had no drops, just a couple of bobbles and a girl came down early in the pyramid. All the tumbling hit and all the stunting, and jumps hit. So we are just baffled as to what happened. But it's was only a local competition and they were judged fairly at a bigger competition on their skill and difficulty level, but it's still kind of a slap in the face at the local level and I think it shakes the kids' confidence.

Yeah... that must feel like a slap in the face. But it's weird, I mean you'd think the difficulty would outweigh the other team's cleanliness? Dang, I guess my middle school coach wasn't lying.