Southern Lehigh’s competitive cheerleaders will look to uphold their spirit from their season as they approach the National High School Cheerleading Championship in Orlando, Florida on February 11-12.

At nationals they will face greater competition when compared to past events that the cheerleaders have performed in this year. In this event they will be competing against schools from all over the nation. The team qualified in regionals, which took place at Kutztown University on December 4,  in order to move on to the national competition.

The competition cheer team finished second in the district competition, qualifying for the state competition held on January 20-21. The state competition was held in Hershey, Pennsylvania in which the team finished 11th out of 44 teams.

“It was a lot of work to get to where we are. It’s a lot of teamwork, you really have to work together because it’s always more than one person in a stunt group and coming together to [figure everything out],” sophomore Abbi Wagner said.

Looking to sustain success in Orlando, the cheerleaders continued to work diligently as they approached nationals. Coached by Aliza Wagner and Sam Shultz, the team practiced three times a week to prepare for competitions. They even had specific workouts that they would follow outside of practices in order to maintain endurance.

“As an individual, I make sure that I really keep on top of everything, even when we’re not practicing. I keep up with working out,” senior Kaitlyn Torcivia said. “As a group, we have practices throughout the week in order to maintain our stamina. We’re all working really hard and we make every minute count.”

The team prepares to say goodbye to four seniors including Kaitlyn Torcivia, Jessica Parrinello, Halle Hartman, and Felicity Levy.

“It’s going to be difficult without the seniors, they’re really nice and they really have great stunting abilities,” junior Gabby Staub said. “They are great people so it’s going to be really hard to move on without them.”

The competition cheer team finished second in the district competition, qualifying for the state competition held on January 20-21. The state competition was held in Hershey, Pennsylvania in which the team finished 11th out of 44 teams.

After a successful season the Southern Lehigh cheerleaders took to Orlando to compete in the National High School Cheerleading Championship that was held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports on February 11th and 12th.

At nationals the team faced some of their greatest competition of the season as they battled against some of the top cheerleading squads from around the country. The team originally became eligible for nationals after they qualified in the regional competition on December 4th at Kutztown University.

At nationals, the team ranked 6th out of 20 in preliminaries and 15th out of 17 in semifinals.