ALLEN PARK — The Michigan high school competitive cheer swing returned to full swing this week, and one of the Downriver area’s more prominent competitions made its annual return to Allen Park High School on Saturday.
This year’s Allen Park Invitational was one of the bigger and more crowded ones in recent memory, as the host Jags were joined alongside by an incredible 19 other varsity cheer teams.Among the teams on hand were a handful of other local programs, including the teams from Dearborn Divine Child, Flat Rock, Melvindale, and Taylor.
After a little more than three hours of competition, it was the two-time defending Division 2 state champion and meet host Jags of Allen Park cruising to a wire-to-wire win.
It’s the third first-place finish in as many meets this winter for Allen Park, who finished atop the standings at both a CCCAM Invite as well as the annual Flat Rock Invite back in December. The Jags on Saturday finished with a final three-round score of 787.04, comfortably ahead of runner-up Fenton.
It was predominantly a field of Division 2 field of teams on Saturday as nine of the 20 schools are slotted within that division, including both Allen Park and Fenton. In fact, the top six teams and seven of the top 10 overall were D2 teams.
As far as the rest of the D2 field, it was Madison Heights Lamphere (743.90) and Detroit Martin Luther King 734.12) surging late to finish third and fourth, respectively.
Divine Child (724.12) finished in fifth place, followed by St Clair Shores Lake Shore (709.00), Lowell (676.60), Melvindale (570.16), and Orchard Lake St Mary’s (567.58) capping off the field of D2 programs.
Another of the five local teams that had a good showing on Saturday was Flat Rock, who bested the group of five D3 programs with a final score of 679.54. The Rams sat behind Clio after one round of competition before putting together a strong second and third round to pull away for the D3 crown.
Flat Rock finished well ahead of Huron League rival Monroe Jefferson (657.40) and aforementioned Clio (640.54), while Michigan Center (606.68) and Harper Woods Chandler Park Academy (575.52) finished out the group of D3 programs.
Saturday was already the fourth meet of the season and the second one this week alone for Flat Rock. At the first of three scheduled Huron League jamborees on Jan 7, the Rams turned in their best meet score of the season, a 707.70 mark that was good for fourth out of six teams.
It was the first official meet of the year for both Divine Child and Melvindale on Saturday. DC a season ago finished as one of the top teams with their average three-round score of 752.32 being good for ninth among all D2 programs.
Melvindale meanwhile last season averaged a meet score of 647.22 across eight competitions.
Like DC and Melvindale, Saturday was the first formal meet of the season for Taylor, who was one of six D1 programs competing. The Griffins rounded out the D1 group with a final score of 619.52.
Saturday’s score is another considerable step forward for Taylor, who a season ago in their eight competitions averaged a three-round score of 575.08.
Elsewhere, Westland John Glenn (704.28) hung on to finish first in the D1 field despite a late third-round push from Saline (703.96). There was a considerable gap between both Glenn and Saline with Livonia Franklin (638.94) finishing third overall, followed by Walled Lake Northern (629.28) and Livonia Churchill (621.26) in fourth and fifth, respectively.
Photo gallery of the 2026 Allen Park Invitational competitive cheer meet
