The West Haven Seahawks cheerleading squads competed against the champions of the other seven regions and brought home the Ray Tellier Midget Football league’s first national championships.
The Junior Peewee (9 and 10), Peewee (11 and 12) and Junior Varsity (13 and 14) all qualified at the New England Pop Warner championships and traveled to ESPN’s Wide World of Sports, located at Disney World, Orlando last week to compete for a national championship. The three squads performed in five competitions over a five-day period.
The Junior Peewee squad, with 22 cheerleaders, competed in the traditional competition routine and performed flawlessly winning first place by two points, the equivalent of two touchdowns in football! This is the programs first national championship in a competition routine, which is comparable to a half-time show and includes music, acrobatic stunts, dancing and tumbling.
The Peewee squad executed a very good competition and game day sideline routine. They competed against very good competition nationally and placed seventh in completion and fourth place in new game-day routine.
The Junior Varsity team also competed in a traditional completion routine and the newer game day sideline routine. The sideline category is what you see on football game days with chants to lead the crowd and includes signs, pom-poms, tumbling and stunting. The Junior Varsity team performed very well in the completion routine and placed third, and only .42 points out of first place. The team then regrouped and stole the show with the programs 1st game day side line national championship.
All three of the cheerleading teams placed and were awarded trophies in a very tough and competitive competition that saw over 10,000 cheerleaders compete from just about every state in the country.