This weekend, the UCF Cheer and Dance teams will head to the National Championships at Disney’s Wide World of Sports.
The College Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championships takes place Saturday and Sunday, with the Division IA Dance Hip Hop Finals begin at 3:30 p.m.
“We have worked very hard this year to prepare a performance that we can execute with confidence, one that will impress the judges and make our UCF fans proud,” UCF Cheerleading head coach Linda Gooch said.
UCF is scheduled to compete in the Cheerleading World University Championships at 1:32 p.m., and the Dance World University Championships at 5:30 p.m. The Division IA Cheer Finals will begin at 6:30 p.m.
The UCF Cheerleading team placed second last year in the same competition, falling to the University of Kentucky for first. The Knights have placed in the top-10 of the College Cheerleading National Championship 19 times in the last 21 years under Gooch’s leadership, including national titles in 2003 and 2007.
“The dance team has worked hard with strength coach Drew Williams to increase the athleticism and power of the team in order to be able to execute the difficult tricks that are included in this year’s choreography,” Gooch noted. “The cheerleaders look to match the consistency of last year’s team and hope to gain difficulty points in basket tosses and with an ending pyramid sequence that is both entertaining and highly acrobatic.”
