Strawberry Crest High School’s competitive cheerleading team flipped, twirled and spun their way to a national championship win this weekend after it competed against 32 other top contenders in Orlando at the Universal Cheer Association’s national championships in the Small Varsity Coed Division 1.
While the team of 18 girls and two boys is no stranger at the competition (they competed in eight of the last ten national competitions and won a national championship in 2020), the team defied the odds because this was a rebuilding year and half of its team members had never cheered for Strawberry Crest. One of the boys had never set foot on a competitive floor and had to put in extra effort to match his seasoned teammate Hayden Johns, who made the USA Junior Olympic Cheer Team, move for move.
They delivered a near-perfect performance that earned a raw score of 90.9 out of 100 possible points, beating out rival Blackman High School, who were the reigning champions (having won first place for the last three years) by a mere 0.4 points, who lost points because of an error.
“They’re very good and very tough to beat but like I tell my team all the time, the team that handles the pressure wins,” said Head Coach Loveny Savarino, who has been a cheer coach at Strawberry Crest for 13 years.
There were three rounds of competition: preliminary (broke up into two brackets), semi-finals and finals. The first day, in the preliminary bracket, Blackman was one of the teams they were up against. Strawberry Crest placed second in their bracket but Blackman won first, allowing them to bypass the semi-final round and earning them a free pass straight to the finals.
Savarino called that a blessing. The weekend before they competed in states and, to make sure they could score as many points as possible, changed their music and brand new routine with only three days to practice it. “Competing in the semi-final round gave us a chance to do our routine in front of the crowd,” she said.
After placing first in the semifinal round and going into the final round on Sunday, the team was practicing up to the last minute, taking the judge’s score sheets and making changing as suggested. “It was at that point we told the team that it’s not the most talented team that wins championships, it’s the talented team that performs well under pressure that wins championships,” she said. “You don’t have to be the best team, you just have to be the best team that day performing under pressure.”
The final day, as ESPN cameras surrounded the arena, Savarino encouraged the team of 24 (20 who compete) to ignore the cameras and go out there and do their job. “I told them to trust themselves, trust their teammates and have faith that it was going to go their way,” she said. “They walked out there and under that amount of pressure they performed to the best of their ability.”
While they were performing, Savarino could hear the audience, which included parents, alumni and school administrators, screaming and chanting for the team. “It was electrifying, it was crazy, they blew the roof off of that place,” she said.
Senior Sienna Smith, who has been on the team for four years, said the win was a perfect end to her cheer career. She doesn’t plan on cheering in college. “This achievement took a lot of practice, determination and patience,” she said. “The will to want to put in the work this year really helped us reach our goal.”