Fort Walton Beach High School cheerleaders successfully defended their national title at a competition over the weekend.
The 29-person squad won the top spot in large non-tumbling division at the National High School Cheerleading Competition in Orlando after landing in second place at state competition a week ago.
“It’s an amazing feeling being back-to-back national champions,” said Jordyn Hoffmann, one of the team captains. “Being second (at the state competition) definitely helped up our game.”
The group was in first place against the 14 other teams after preliminaries and concluded six points above the next closest team in the division, Hoffmann said.
They also went on to win second place at a world championship competition against teams from Mexico, Canada and Costa Rica.
Hoffmann, who is graduating this year, said they had high hopes that the winning trend at nationals would continue.
“Definitely the third is going to be tough, but I think we can do it,” she said.
Choctawhatchee High School’s squad might not have won their division as they did at state last week, but Coach Hailey Buchanan said they were pleased with a third-place finish after placing seventh the previous year.
Read more about the state competition »
“The kids were very, very excited,” Buchanan said. “The teams that we competed against were very good.”
The squad went up against 20 other co-ed teams in a new division this year. In spite of having far fewer males on their team than other squads, they were able to secure one of the top 10 spots in the finals, she said.
An imperfect routine landed them in third rather than first or second, but Buchanan said she was still proud of the team especially since it was only the second time they’d competed in a national co-ed division.
“We were very unsure of how the competition was going to look when we actually got to nationals,” Buchanan said. “They really pulled through and made sure we did what we needed to do.”
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.