MATT VOLZ
Sports Editor
Images from the 2024 NCA Nationals competition in Daytona Beach, Fla.
All images courtesy of JULIE TROCHE | Special to The Leader
Many athletes face the pressure of stepping out under the bright lights to perform in front of a screaming crowd, knowing that they’ve got to be at their best.
It’s a common theme that’s often seen in sports like football, basketball, soccer and many others.
Cheerleading is no different.
This month, Fredonia’s own cheer team will get its chance to take the stage on a national level.
The Blue Devils will travel to Daytona Beach, Fla., to compete in the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) College Nationals competition.
It’s no small competition, with somewhere around 10,000 athletes set to compete.
One cheerleader, senior Alli Ramsey, said she’s never seen a competition quite like this one.
“I’ve grown up doing competition cheer, so I’ve gone to the biggest competitions in cheerleading,” she said. “None of them even resemble what Daytona is.”
Ramsey has attended three national competitions in her time at Fredonia, and with her experience, she hopes to teach her younger teammates what Daytona is all about.
She said that at last year’s competition, high winds caused things to be cancelled or pushed back, so this year’s sophomores still haven’t experienced it in its full glory.
“The whole team is coming to my house, and I’m doing a PowerPoint for them,” she said. “I’m trying to get everyone prepared, but it’s never, ever going to [be enough to] prepare anyone.”
The trip starts bright and early on Tuesday, April 8, as the team plans to leave Fredonia for the airport at 4 a.m., according to head coach Julie Troche.
Troche said that Tuesday will be a practice day once the team gets settled in, and afterwards, they plan to get together for a team dinner.
According to Ramsey, the dinner is usually formal, but this year, the team has decided to have a bit of fun with it.
She said they still plan to have an all-black dress code, but instead of dining at a nicer place, they’re going to Dick’s Last Resort, a themed restaurant where the staff is paid to treat customers like dirt beneath their feet.
Ramsey said the team hopes it’ll be a de-stressor as they enter what can be a stressful competition.
Everyone on the team has their own method of combating nerves, according to Troche.
The coach said she urges her athletes to remain present in the moment and take the routine one skill at a time.
“Don’t think about what’s coming next,” she said. “Think of what you have to do right now, because if you’re thinking too far ahead, you’re going to lose your technique and what you’re doing right now.”
It’s a routine the team has spent many months preparing, as Ramsey said they typically start learning choreography as early as October.
Images from the 2024 NCA Nationals competition in Daytona Beach, Fla.
All images courtesy of JULIE TROCHE | Special to The Leader
Even before that, the team attends an NCA camp from late August to early September.
Ramsey said that the team’s early start can be attributed to an interesting advantage the Blue Devils have over other, bigger schools. Fredonia doesn’t have a football team, so the time not spent cheering at football games allows the team to focus more on their routine.
“Only cheering for basketball gives us a huge advantage to spend more time nitpicking the routine,” she said. “It gives us the opportunity to spend time making sure we are putting a routine out there that we are 110% proud of.”
This year’s routine is one to be proud of, according to Ramsey, and she added that it is the hardest routine she’s ever had in her time at Fredonia.
Despite the difficulty of the routine, she believes the team is up to the challenge.
“This is the team I’ve been wishing for my entire life,” she said. “I’ve never been so confident walking into a competition as I’m going to be this year.”
“I wouldn’t want to be performing any other routine with any other team,” she added.
Troche echoed that statement, saying she’s excited about the team and their chances in Daytona Beach.
“I would say this is probably one of the teams where we have some of the highest level skills we’ve ever tried,” she said.
Because of the number of teams and athletes, teams are separated into different divisions, and the divisions are split across three different venues.
Fredonia’s cheer team will compete in the Intermediate All-Girls Division III group.
Their performances are split across two days, with one on Thursday and one on Friday.
For each performance, a team only has a six-minute, 20-second time frame to show the judges what they can do.
They are provided with three mats: one for jumping/tumbling, one for stunts and one for running the full routine.
Troche explained that because the time limit of a routine is two minutes and 15 seconds, they may only have time to run through it twice, and they may not even do that.
“The first time on the mat, we might just do stunts only, and the second time on the mat, we’ll do a full-out [runthrough],” she said.
She said the scores on Thursday count for 25% of the team’s overall score.
Once they receive their Thursday scores, they have less than 24 hours to make any changes to their routine to try and score higher on Friday.
Troche said that Friday is the same routine and the same time frame, but this performance counts for 75% of the team’s score.
Last year, they finished 12th out of 19 teams in their division, their highest place ever at NCA Nationals.
Each year, the winning teams take their banner and trophy and run straight into the Atlantic Ocean in celebration.
Troche said their eventual goal is to be the ones going for a swim.
While a trip to Daytona Beach in April may seem like a vacation to most college students, the team knows it is primarily a business trip, according to Ramsey.
Much of the day Wednesday, as well as when they’re not competing on Thursday and Friday, is spent practicing.
They have a few allotted time slots to practice in designated areas, but much of their practice will take place on grassy areas outside, wherever they can find space.
“If we have a little bit of extra time to sit on the beach after we perform, that’s cool,” said Ramsey. “But that’s not what we’re there for, and everyone on our team is so good about that.”
On Saturday, after performances have finished, the athletes will have an opportunity to mingle with members of other teams, and they can practice stunts with other athletes they may never meet otherwise.
The team plans to return home early on Sunday, catching another flight in the morning.
Troche said she hopes the competition will serve as a positive memory for her team.
“This is going to be a memory in two weeks,” she said. “[It’s about] finding that reason to say, ‘This is why I’m here. This is why we’re doing this.’”
In Daytona Beach, the Blue Devils have the chance to make history and place higher than they ever have before.