Varsity Competitive Cheer made Campo history on February 14, bringing home a third place trophy from USA Nationals in Anaheim. With a final score of 91.61 and placing higher than ever before, the team is nothing short of elated.
The team traveled down to Anaheim on Thursday, February 13 and performed the next morning. The trip didn’t come without challenges, though. Senior and co-captain Elizabeth VonderBrink said, “There was a lot of turbulence, and it was raining on the day that we left, but it was really fun.” VonderBrink continued, “It was so exciting, especially because it was my last year [performing] ever.”
Freshman Dylan DeWeese enjoyed her first time at the national competition, and particularly liked “getting really close with a bunch of our seniors and everyone on the team.” From the plane ride down to Anaheim to a full day at Disneyland, there was plenty of time for the team to bond. VonderBrink added, “since it was my last year, I finally got to appreciate everything and all the little moments.”
The annual trip was “different because we started off in a higher division, so we had a lot less time to perfect our novice division routine,” said VonderBrink. “But it was similar because we all had so much energy.”
Despite the division change, the Campo Cheer team was able to pull off a third place win, which is the highest Campo has ever scored at Nationals. Only 3.56 points separated the team from first, and after narrowly missing first place last year by 1.5 points, this year was guaranteed to be nothing short of spectacular, with VonderBrink stating, “getting a trophy was so rewarding.”
In future years, DeWeese is looking forward to “continue to work on cheer and see improvement” and sophomore Katherine Cowen is looking forward to “winning.”
When asked what successes of the season were, VonderBrink stated that, “how well we worked as a team and how we always showed up and did our best” were some of the main highlights. DeWeese said, “I’m excited to see what nationals will be like next year because of how well we did this year. We’re only going to get better.”
