The local competitive cheerleading team, Volusia Elite Allstars senior 3 royalty, stole the crown and took first place and grand champs a few weekends ago at their first ever competition of the season. These ladies have worked on overdrive, putting in countless hours of practice and commitment to their sport. The girls on this team have put blood, sweat, and tears into their routine and were determined to take home the win.
“It was such an amazing feeling to have not only won first place but also grand champs against not one but two coed teams,” junior Alexis Browne said.
Although the ladies accomplished one of their biggest goals of the season, they faced some obstacles along the way leading up to this competition. During practice, some of the girls hit a fork in the road when trying to execute the routine ‘full out’.
“Personally, I have a stunt in our routine that often struggles at practice and takes a lot of energy and working together from the four of us in the stunt,” sophomore Morgan O’Quinn said. “We are often working on this stunt while others are resting after a hard full our or when the girls get to have a water breaks. At this past competition, we were able to pull through and complete the stunt without a fall.”
In addition to these hardships they face at practice, right before the girls hit the mat they had to forget about what happened at practice and leave it all behind them. They had to live in the moment and be optimistic about the future. During warm-ups, the ladies all wore a confident façade and tried to hide any fear they were experiencing.
“When I was backstage I was nervous, but I tried to envision us hitting while trying to calm everyone else down,” senior Gianna Bellantonio said.
After putting all of those emotions aside, it was time to show the judges what they were made of. These ladies brought the attitude to the floor as they are the real deal and killed it. The crowd went wild as the girls hit all of their stunts and stuck their tumbling. This competition was for sure one for the books and will forever have left a legacy at the Elite gym.
