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COLLEGE CHEERLEADING: ELMIRA COLLEGE SETS SIGHTS ON REPEATING AS NATIONAL CHAMPIONS AS THEY PREPARE FOR SEASON (24 PHOTOS) (2022-10-31)

By Brian Fees
Southern Tier Sports Report
Last year was one for the ages for the Elmira College cheerleading team as they won their third national championship in school history at the 2022 National Cheerleaders Association College Nationals.

As hard as winning nationals is, the team knows the even tougher part is getting back there and doing it again and again.

“I tell them probably once a practice, winning was the easy part, staying there is the hard part,” Elmira College coach Amber Myers said. “For all of us our goal this year is to go back-to-back, and we are going to do everything we can to make that happen. There is a little bit of pressure, but there is also excitement to say, ‘hey, we are at the top and we are going to stay here for a couple years.’

“I think every year we go into it wanting to be better than we were the year before, whether that’s a national championship finish, or if it’s a top five finish. There is definitely some added excitement. There will be more people on the mat this year. We do have harder skills already this year. We have choreography coming up in a couple weeks. We want to take it a little bit higher. We know there were people close on our heels last year, and there’s going to be even more this year so we have to come out and go big.”

For the cheerleaders last year was special and they are hoping to get back to the same point this year.

“I am just really hyped to get back on the mat and start practicing so we can win again,” Gabrielle Radcliffe said. “We definitely have to work harder to stay as a national champion so we can win again.

“We are moving pretty quickly to be even better than last year.”

As soon as last year ended the cheerleaders went right back to work.

“Like as soon as we got back (from nationals) I was ready to get back to practicing again,” Mason Davis said.

“Honestly right away,” Shauna Roth said.

“Definitely, during the summer after like a month I was ready to get back,” Radcliffe said.

Winning nationals last year brings some extra energy to the team as they get ready for the season.

“It definitely brings more excitement,” Myers said. “I think I feel a little bit more pressure too. But, I think pressure is a good thing if you utilize it the right way. It’s definitely exciting, being reigning national champions, and our goal is to go back to back.”

The cheerleaders are already putting in the work to try and repeat.

“The goal definitely is to come back with another back-to-back national championship and we have to fight even harder this year to say where we are,” Davis said.

“That’s the dream, to have another one this year and keep going and just stay on top. That’s the hardest part, is staying up there once you get there. You have to live up to the expectations you are putting on yourself and everyone else. You’ve done it once, and now you have to go back and do it again.”

“I didn’t have one (nationals) freshman year because of Covid, sophomore year we were second and last year first and I just want to stay at first,” Radcliffe said.

What made last year even more remarkable is some of the challenges the Soaring Eagles faced along the way.

In a year that was impacted due to Covid, Elmira wasn’t able to earn its normal gold bid in the preseason and they had to earn the bid during the school year.

All of that also made it harder to have a normal offseason to prepare for last season.

This year the team has had a normal summer, and they already earned their gold bid.

“It was awesome,” Myers said. “Camp went extremely well. We got our bold bid at camp this year, so we started the season off exactly how we wanted to. And, it felt really good to actually start in September like we normally do and start right off the bat with normal practices, not wearing masks, not having to test every practice, so it’s been nice. It feels like we are back to normal.”

The athletes are all excited to have a more normal season this time around.

“The past few years we just have had so many things hurt by Covid,” Radcliffe said. “Things will be good then Covid will just ruin it.”

“Honestly, it feels weird having so much time to plan and prepare rather than being like okay we have to get through it, we have to do it, we have to get there and go. This year, I would say probably 90% of the team this was their first nationals camp they got to go to instead of having one at the school, so it was definitely a new experience for everyone so it feels really good.”

We are in a much better place this year than last year. We are doing much harder skills already.”

It’s nice for the Soaring Eagles to be starting off on the right foot with the gold bid to nationals.

“We are starting at the same spot as everyone else, not lower” Roth said.

But, with things being more normal this year it also means the competition also has had a normal offseason to prepare for the year.

“I think with it being a normal year this year they are understanding it’s going to take even more hard work and a lot more determination,” Myers said. “But, I see a completely different team this year. In our upperclassmen I see a lot more confidence. They are confident in their skills and they are confident in their leadership abilities. So, I feel winning has helped that.”

Along with all the veterans who were part of the national title last year, the Soaring Eagles have a strong group of newcomers coming in.

“Our freshman class this year is very strong,” Myers said. “I was very excited with how hard we worked in recruiting last year to get them here. Like I said last year, winning makes everything better, so even our recruiting class this year looking forward to the next two years is very strong also. I look forward to all the steps backward we had to take because of Covid, we are finally able to move forward with normalcy in recruiting and it doesn’t hurt that we can say come cheer for a national championship program.”

The veterans on the team feel like this is a great group all the way around.

“They definitely want to win,” Radcliffe said of the newcomers. “They saw everything we went through last year, so they definitely want to have that feeling too.”

“This is probably one of the closest teams I’ve been a part of and it feels really good,” Davis said. “We are doing very hard skills very early, so I’m excited to see where we go. We have some very talented freshman that came in to, so I’m very confident we can do it again.”’

The newcomers just push the older athletes to make everyone better.

“My philosophy is you try out every single year and your spot is not guaranteed for four years,” Myers said. “You have to continue to push and improve and get better during your time with the program. Having a very talented recruiting class come in has definitely pushed some of our upperclassmen and I already see it in their work ethic and just their team dynamic in practices.”

The cheerleaders just knew before the year even began that they had to keep working to get better.

“We met over the summer, so over the summer it was like, this is hard work, we’ve just got to get better,” Roth said.

And, the cheerleaders know the rest of the schools are coming for them this year.

“Even in our camp over the summer that we go to every year to get a bid, every school that was there kind of was watching us,” Davis said. “They are like, oh, that’s who won last year and they were watching us waiting to see what we were going to do.”
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Elmira College’s cheer team prepares for the team at practice. PHOTOS BY BRIAN FEES

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