After winning two back-to-back Christian Cheerleaders of America (CCA) National Championships, the Greenville University Cheerleaders decided to switch it up and go to the west coast where they competed in the USA Collegiate Championship in Anaheim, California.
The cheerleaders flew into Los Angeles on February 21st for the competition on the 23rd. That means they had one day to find something to do and they chose a very special place. They spent their off-day in a magical location called Disneyland.
After spending the day enjoying what Walt Disney left behind, it was time to focus on what was upcoming the next day. Excited would be an understatement of how the cheerleaders felt for this competition because they spent most of the year at other sporting events cheering on and supporting other teams and this competition was THEIR event where they could show what they are made of.
The cheerleaders competed in two different events at nationals: collegiate band chant and fight song. They performed at 7:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M. on Saturday the 23rd. Because of the amount of time they spent preparing for this event, you would think that this would be a five to ten-minute performance. However, it is actually less than that because the rules of the event. They
When asked about how the performances went, co-captain Emily Koberlein said, “They went as great as they could have! There were a few minor mistakes but nothing really judgmental. We received a lot of compliments from some of the other teams. Especially with all of the road bumps we had along the way, I thought that things went really well. We knew going into this new competition that it was going to be a lot different and a lot more competitive than it was in previous years at CCA. This was a step that we (the program) needed to take in our growing process as a team. Coach Sean [Washington] is in his fourth year now and essentially brought up this program from nothing. We were excited about this new challenge knowing that we were going to be going up against higher skilled teams than in previous years. We knew we had our work cut out for us and we felt good and prepared for the challenge.”
This team’s hard work and dedication paid off as they earned second place in both competitions. Koberlein stated, “We were obviously upset that we were not able to 3-peat, but we knew that this competition was going to be a lot tougher than the other one so, in the end, we were very happy with what we were able to accomplish, especially for our first time in this competition.”
Just like that, the season for 2019 GU Cheerleaders is over. Now they can focus on improving as they look to get ready for next year’s football and basketball seasons and improve on what some would call a great start as USA Collegiate Nationals.
Panthers on three! Panthers on three! 1-2-3 PANTHERS!
