This story originally ran in The Standard-Times on Nov. 17, 2002.

By Nick Tavares
Standard-Times correspondent

Fairhaven's cheerleaders are the newly crowned South Coast Conference Champions, and this afternoon in Taunton they'll be gunning for another title -- Regional Champs.

"They're a very strong team and they're very talented," said coach Amy Raposa in her second season coaching Fairhaven. "And if everything goes well at regionals, we'll get to compete for States on the 24th."

To advance to states, the girls would need to finish in the top three, as last year they finished third, missing second by only three points due to a penalty.

Fairhaven's cheerleading squad have prepared extensively for this event, as their weekly regimen includes four two-hour practices a week, one gymnastic session that lasts for one-and-a-half hours and Fairhaven's football game.

"They're working at it six times a week," added coach Raposa "and they've worked very hard to get here."

The MSSAA, the governing body for cheerleading in Massachusetts, sets guidelines for which cheerleading competitions are judged, which include gymnastics, dance motions, jumps and statue. There are then three judges who hand out a total of 100 points each making for a top score of 300.

At the SCC championships, Fairhaven scored 239 out of 300 to win.

Fairhaven had also trained and competed this summer at a camp run at UMass Dartmouth, where at the end of the two-week program, they came out on top at the final competition ahead of 26 other participating teams.

Coupled with the fact that they only lost one senior from last year's team, they have a wealth of experience to draw from that should work in their favor.

Fairhaven's competing squad is led by seniors Justine Thomas, Tiffany Dias, Rachel Alve,s Stephanie Andrade, Lexi Merolla, Tiffany Pedro and Taryn Edvardsen, along with underclassmen Andrea Rarr, Linda Staffin, Kerri Silver, Bethany Stevens, Tiffany Defrias, Kelly McMullan, Page McMillan and Nicole Ingrham.

This story appeared on Page E6 of The Standard-Times on November 17, 2002.