The Lake Land College (LLC) cheerleading team is set to go to the National Cheerleading Association’s (NCA) finals in Daytona, Florida despite all odds! This is the first time in LLC history that the cheer team is going to nationals. The event will take place April 5-9. 

The LLC cheerleading team has been raising money since summer 2022 to buy uniforms and pay expenses for them to participate in the competition. While the team was provided $1100 from LLC itself, the cheerleading team raised around $5,000 from fundraising. Just in time to pay for travel and other fees for the event.

According to LLC cheerleader and student Josie Smith, “basically we’ve not received a penny from the school…LLC tried telling us we couldn’t even wear anything saying ‘Lake Land’ at first, now we’re at a point where they finally agreed to pay our coach and let use a van from school.” Keep in mind this was before finding out about the $1100 from LLC to help contribute to costs. However, Smith says the team still has to pay for everything such as the van and housing for a week while in Daytona.

Smith also said, “There was so much doubt that we would be able to do it that [out of ]15 or 16 cheerleaders that began over last summer there’s only three left.” Smith joined around mid season, making the four of them the four original school cheerleaders.

Now the team has recruited eight new members through knowing them from older programs or previous schools. The last two to join had only three days to learn the routine they had prepared for a showcase on March 19. A showcase in which the team got zero points deducted from!

Smith has all the optimism in the world stating, “we [cheer team] couldn’t be more excited.” Smith, when asked about future goals for the cheer team said, “I hope we show the school how hard we work and they come to realize the support we deserve. This made the team stronger than ever and I can’t wait to see everything else we’re capable of in the future.”