KISSIMMEE - Fleming Island and Ridgeview high schools grabbed spots on the medal stand at the Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA) National Championship at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando on April 23-25, 2021.
For Fleming Island, it was a redemptive weekend. The season got off to a rough start when the Golden Eagles registered a 62.85 at the FHSAA Regional competition on January 9, the lowest score of coach Ryan Andrews’ eight-year tenure at the school. When Andrews said that his charges were right on track after finishing third at the FHSAA State Championship January 25, one wondered whether he was simply trying to keep their spirits up.
It got worse for Fleming Island when in March, after practicing their UCA routine for five weeks, four cheerleaders left the team. The Golden Eagles were left with 17 girls and just four boys. Forced to rely on girls as bases for some of the stunts, Andrews completely revamped the routine. He kept a high level of difficulty, featuring cupies, where the flyer’s feet are together in one fully extended hand of a single base, and by asking flyers to execute a ball-out stepthrough leading into a roundoff tuck on the way down from one of the stunts.
In Orlando, Fleming Island dropped only one stunt as they sailed through the semifinal round into the finals, where again only one stunt was not completed. Fleming Island’s composite score of 84.65 slotted the Golden Eagles into third place behind New Orleans Brother Martin (92.25) and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma (89.73) in the Medium Co-ed Division. Andrews was thrilled with the performances, which guaranteed that the entire Fleming Island finals routine will be featured on ESPN’s delayed broadcast of the event, which will air in May.
“They looked like they had been running that routine for six months,” said Andrews. “This team has done an incredible thing here and my hat goes off to them.”
Coming off an FHSAA State championship in January, Ridgeview roared into the UCA competition full of confidence, ready to show off a routine that featured flyers who did roundoffs into their stunts, a difficult pyramid and two sets of hand-to-hands stunts— maneuvers where the flyer is thrown up directly into a handstand in the upraised hands of the base. The Panthers suffered six points in deductions in the semifinal round, but responded with a finals performance that merited only 1 deduction.
“Our semifinals performance was not what we expected it to be,” commented Panthers third-year head coach Aimee Stutz. “However, we allowed those mistakes to fuel the fire and our finals performance was the best routine we have thrown all season.”
The Panthers improved from a 79.8 to an 87.8, netting a composite score of 83.8 that earned second place behind West Nassau’s 92.25. With only three seniors, Ridgeview should be strong again next season.
Clay finished fifth in the Medium Co-ed Division. The Blue Devils had won the division at the UCA Central Florida Regional in December and had added difficulty to their pyramid, which for the nationals featured three rewinds, two hands full-arounds and two low-to-highs. Like, like Ridgeview, however, Clay was forced to battle back from difficulties with their semifinals performance.
The Blue Devils found themselves in seventh place after the judges subtracted 6.25 points in deductions during the semifinals. Clay rebounded with only 2.25 points deducted in the finals, allowing the Blue Devils to leapfrog two teams in the final standings. Coach Lori Davis felt that nerves got the better of her Blue Devils in the semifinals, but was impressed by their resilience.
“Ending this season with a fifth place finish at Nationals was a proud moment,” said Davis. “This season has been about more than just a score or placement. Like everyone else, our team overcame so much, including a summer shutdown, quarantines, injuries, losing team members and adding new ones at the last minute.”
Bishop Snyder finished fifth in Ridgeview’s Small Varsity Coed Non-Tumbling Division. Clay County schools Middleburg and Oakleaf did not participate in the event.
The Ridgeview junior varsity squad won the Junior Varsity Non-Tumbling Division by a 76.85-70.45 margin over Our Lady of Lourdes Academy.