This year marked an exciting year for Big Spring’s cheer squad, as they got sent to Nationals in Orlando, Florida. This is the first Big Spring cheer team to make it to these rigorous cheer championships, and they sure are proud of it.

The team worked hard for their spot in the championships, and fundraised for the better part of January. This was not without challenges, though, as weather conditions ended up cancelling out their spaghetti dinner fundraiser. The cheer group had already raised enough money via donations, though, and was still able to attend the cheer championships.

There were other hiccups along the way, too. When the team was learning new choreography, one of the girls dropped from the team. That’s not all, though, as even on the day that the team was supposed to leave, problems arose. The day that the girls were to fly out to Florida, their airplane had a four hour delay. This left the team stuck in the airport, and missing their practice time that was allotted for the competition. Still, girls like Leah Eichelberger had high hopes that they would make it too the competition, and that they did.

After the delay in flights, the girls arrived in Florida, and began the preparations for the following day. That night the girls practiced their routine in the hotel courtyard, since they had missed their time earlier that day. And before they knew it, the day of the competition was upon them.

Leah Eichelberger said, “I will never forget walking into the competition and everyone’s eyes getting huge thinking, ‘How did we get here?’” Eichelberger also said that she went into the competition like it was a normal practice, and Megan Wiley said that even though she had been to cheer competitions ever since she was five, this one still made her nervous. Still, the girls put all their effort into the competition. Now it was time to wait for the results.

The girls ended up placing 14th out of 24 in the competition. Wiley said, “When I first heard the results, I was a bit disappointed. We needed 12th to make finals. I was disappointed because we were so close, but then I realized that at our first national competition we beat 10 teams. That’s amazing!” Both she and Eichelberger both agree that their team was able to pull through as far as they did due to the closeness their team has. Both are also very proud of how far their team came this year, and proud of what they accomplished.

To Wiley, this competition has proved, in her opinion, that the team can go far and do great things. She said, “I’m glad that our recent accomplishment has put our name out into the community, boosting support and spirit.”