The varsity cheerleaders do their best to keep football crowds roaring with thrill and spirit with their tumbling passes and lively chants. Because of the successful season, the varsity squad has the opportunity to now cheer their hearts out at the UCA High School Competition in Orlando, Florida on Feb. 10.

The National Cheer Competition in Florida is one of the most prestigious competitions in the country. The whole varsity team will be attending this competition

“This competition is on a much bigger scale,” senior varsity cheerleader Bridget Alvarez said. “There are international teams and there are colleges that come and watch and recruit there as well”.

There have been some setbacks in their performance that caused the team to alter their whole routine.

“One of our main flyers got injured over Christmas break trying to do some tumbling passes so we had to completely redo the routine,” coach Amie Roggemann said.

The cheerleaders want to go and perform at Nationals, so they tried to move past the injury dilemma and make this routine one to be excited for.

“There’s two rounds, Preliminaries and Finals, and they have not made it to Finals before, so our goal this year and what we want to accomplish is making it to that next round,” Roggemann said.

The routine the varsity squad has been working on has a mixture of music dancing and chants that will get the crowd going.

“It’s a mixture of a bunch of different cover songs because there actually is a big change with music rules now with competitions,” Roggemann said. “The cheer part alone is worth thirty five points out of one hundred and that’s where they get the crowd to get loud and cheer.”

In their National routine, the cheerleader get to express themselves through their own stunts.

“We do a lot of our own stuff that makes it our own routine and we put a lot of our own skills into it and that’s what makes it special,” freshman varsity cheerleader Tanya Zint said.

With the desire to compete and win, the cheerleaders still have to deal with challenge of  putting their schoolwork first before they can perform on the floor.

“It’s a lot of work, it takes a huge toll on them, especially because it’s the last few days of the six weeks so they have to be on top of their school work prior to leaving,” Roggemann said.

Winning the competition at Nationals may be their main goal, but the cheerleaders also have other wants, like coming closer as a family.

“I just hope that we bond more as a team and we’re able to put our best foot forward going onto the floor,” Alvarez said.

The team wants to bond with their six departing seniors at Nationals before they graduate.

“I just hope we come closer as a group and family because of the seniors leaving,” Zint said.

They also expect that Nationals will boost their confidence when cheering.

“I think it’s also going to boost up our confidence level because we had to change a lot of things because girls have gotten hurt but I think our confidence level will definitely boost,” Zint said.

But most importantly, the cheerleaders want to cheer at a huge competition that will tighten their bonds with one another

“We’ve overcome a lot as a team and I think that this will bond us closer together and it is great to experience a trip like this with the people I spend most of my time with.” Alvarez said.