The BU Cheer team made history Friday, placing fourth for the first time at the National Cheerleaders Association Collegiate Cheer Championship.
Co-captain Kate Lawrence said this was a “comeback season” of sorts, as the team did not compete at in Daytona Beach, Florida competition last year.
Judges evaluated the team’s stunts, tumbling, jumps and overall image, said Lawrence, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences.
All teams competed in a preliminary round on Thursday, said coach Amanda Alon, with the all the teams scoring in the top 50 percent plus one advancing to the final round on Friday. BU Cheer placed sixth in the preliminary round, making them the “plus one” team that advanced to finals for Division I all-girls competition.
Co-captain Ana Stamatos said the team didn’t perform as well as they wanted in the preliminary round, and they began to grow too “comfortable” as the two-minute, 15-second performance went on.
“As we progressed through the routine, people started to unravel and it started to fall apart a little bit,” Stamatos, a senior in the Questrom School of Business, said.
Stamatos said the team worked hard to improve between the preliminary and final rounds.
“Making sure that [the team] knew that they had to be in that end-all-or-be-all mindset was our main focus going throughout the day,” Stamatos said.
Despite a disappointing preliminary round, the team made up for it in the finals with a perfect routine, without any point deductions, Alon said.
Lawrence said she could feel that the finals performance was an especially good one.
“After we didn’t do as well the first day, the second day everyone kind of wanted to redeem themselves and go into it full throttle,” Lawrence said. “You could feel that energy on the mat. We felt when it was happening that it was the one.”
Alon attributed the group’s record performance to a good team dynamic.
“We had a really good vibe this year,” Alon said. “[We] all worked really hard and really pushed each other to perform well. It really showed on Friday.”
Stamatos said the performance in the final round was one of the most rewarding parts of her cheerleading career.
“Having that moment of unification and everyone being on the same wave and dynamic … was one of the best experiences that I ever had,” Stamatos said.
While Stamatos has performed at nationals before, she said attending as a captain was a different experience.
“It was a very new experience not because I hadn’t been there, but because more than half the girls on the team hadn’t been,” Stamatos said. “That added a little extra nerve and uncertainty to how we would do performance-wise.”
Lawrence said the team is now focusing on tryouts, which are being held in a couple of weeks, and on building the legacy they have started.
“It’s been a huge year for us,” Lawrence said. “Next year, we hope that we’ll go back to nationals and do even better than we did this year, hopefully top three.”
Jennifer Small is a junior in the Boston University College of Communication, majoring in journalism and minoring in media science. She is one of the Co-Campus News Editors for Spring 2023.
