The West Virginia University club Competitive Cheer Team pulled out all the stops this year to create a true Cinderella story.

The team finished in first place at the National Cheerleaders Association Collegiate Cheer Championship in the All Girl 1 Intermediate Division.

The national competition took place from April 7-11 in Daytona, Fl. The team competed against 14 other collegiate teams in the finals.

This is the second year the cheer team has attended competition. Last year was their first year of competition, and the team finished second to last.

“It really means the world to us that we won first place at NCA college nationals,” said Chelsea Walus, founder of the team. “We arrived hoping to place in the top five. We were competing as a club team, against schools who have established official cheer teams. No one expected us to come out on top.”

The team’s overall score was 8.686, which was about two-tenths of a point ahead of second-place winner Georgia Southern.

In order to prepare for the competition, the WVU Cheer Team competes in smaller competitions throughout the year. They finished as a top-scoring team March 13 in the Spirit Unlimited Competition at Fairmont State University. They also performed an exhibition routine on March 20 at the World Spirit Federation competition in Pittsburgh.

Walus is hopeful that more girls will be encouraged to try out for the cheer team. Her overall goal is to eventually get the University to recognize competitive cheerleading as an official sport.

To view the team’s finals routine, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIRF9UPo6y4

-WVU-

ep/4/15/10

CONTACT: Amanda Hite, WVU Cheer Team
304-483-6410, wvucompcheer@gmail.com