Coming close to perfection means there's more work ahead.

Radford High School pulled off a near-perfect routine in winning its fourth straight O'ahu Interscholastic Association cheerleading championships at its James Alegre Gymnasium yesterday afternoon. Radford now plans on adding a few more elements to an already difficult routine as it drives for its fifth straight state title.

"I think that we pulled off a routine that's a really difficult routine and so far this year, we've had mistakes," Radford coach Bo Frank said after his team won with 348.5 points. "I didn't find a mistake in that one today so I was really pleased with the performance.

"I tell them we have to be perfect for two minutes and 30 seconds and that was pretty close."

Moanalua finished second with 320.5 points and Mililani was third with 317.5.

Winning wasn't easy for Radford's 10-member squad, whose routine underwent changes in the past few weeks.

"Some practices we had little bit of difficulties and changes in our routine to adjust to get a better score," said Radford senior Tiana Paling. "Overall, we did good for changing in the past few weeks. We dealt with our injuries and stuff like that really well."

Cheering in front of a packed gym, the crowd gave its loudest response for Radford when it held up signs saying, "Go Radford Go, Fight Rams Fight."

"It brings our energy up," Radford senior Malyssa Barbasa said of the crowd's response.

The top nine teams advance to the state championships scheduled for Dec. 13 at the Stan Sheriff Center. Radford has won the last four state titles in the medium division.

"We just have to be consistent and pull it off with no mistakes," Frank said of his team's routine. "There's a couple more things we have to add in there."

Moanalua coach Brian Rafael was proud his team stuck through with its performance.

"Their dance at the ending of their routine, it's the last thing they got to think of and some people can just give up by then and just do the motions," Rafael said. "But we kind of just went all out."

Moanalua also cheered for its football team in Friday night's Division II state football quarterfinals.

Kapolei won the junior varsity title with 299 points and Radford was second with 264.5.