LBCC’s Cheer team participated last weekend in the USA Collegiate Championships for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Which resulted with them coming home as 2022’s National Champions.
On the first day of this two day competition, LBCC Cheer started with a strong lead, hitting all of the stunts in their routine, ranking number one with only 1.5 deductions. In comparison to their competitors from Utah, Snow College finished with 10.5 deductions.
The second day they brought the same energy back out onto the mats, which led the team to their first place victory.
A cheer spectator this weekend commented on the competitor team, traveling all the way from Utah saying, “They must be hungry for a win,” LBCC cheerleader Ronaldo Vicencio responded by saying, “Yeah well we’re starving.”
Ina-Marie Timbo, who has been with this team for five years and is one of the team captains says, “routing each other on, being very encouraging, saying you got this let’s go, ”are some of the attributes that helped make this team successful.
This Championship isn’t the only title LBCC cheer has won this year. At the end of January, they competed in Ontario and came out as the CheerPro California State Champions. This competition helped lead them to Anaheim this February.
Their first place win at the CheerPro State competition is not just a token to show the skill and hard work this team has, but this achievement proved that LBCC Cheer takes the meaning of dedication farther than most.
Coach Diana Galias said that “their love for each other, their consistency, their dedication, their work ethic,” is what sets this team apart from others and raises them to the top.
LBCC Cheer has prospered through the difficulties of practicing and working as a team through the pandemic. They even made a nickname for this team, calling themselves “TheZoomSquad”
Due to the surge of another COVID variant in January, the team suffered by not being able to attend practices when they were supposed to be perfecting the finishing touches for their routine.
Galias said, “We’ve had so many obstacles. When we came back to school in January we had an outbreak of covid, we had to shut down. We only had two practices before we went to state… which we took first place.”
Each week has about 8 hours of practice, excluding the open gym hours available to the athletes, which most of the team always attends.
The main goal for this team is to get a bid for the NCA College National competition in Daytona held every April.
Competing at the NCA competition would set LBCC as not simply the number one college for the two-year cheer division, but would bring in the top of all recruits.