For the first time in school history, Ascension’s Competition cheer team traveled to Orlando, Florida to compete at nationals! This achievement took months of preparation, hard work, and countless hours of practice. From choreography day in June, to our last practice in February, this process took over 8 months. There were countless roadblocks along the way, but we were able to persevere and continue to work towards our goal. The first step on the road to nationals was competing to earn a bid. This became a reality when we competed at regionals in Baton Rouge and placed third to secure our bid. After this, we competed at another regional in Hammond about a month later. With our bid, it was now time to perfect our routine. After many many changes and revisions of the routine, we competed for the last time at home during our showoff and at a basketball game. The following Thursday, we set off for Orlando! After arriving at Disney, we traveled to the ESPN Wide World of Sports Center, where we would have a quick practice to prepare to compete in 2 days. On Saturday, we competed in prelims, our first round of competition. We were ecstatic to find out that out of 40 teams, we made it to the semis! Semis and finals would happen on Monday, but we had a day in Disney on Sunday to celebrate our advancement! Monday came with lots of nerves and pressure as we neared our performance time. We performed to our best ability at semis, and it paid off when we found out that we would be advancing to finals!! Later that night, we competed in finals with the goal of just having fun and showcasing the routine that we had worked on for so long. We went to awards feeling nervous but very proud that we had made it as far as we did. We ended up placing 7th in the nation, which is far better than we had ever dreamed of doing. All our hard work for the season had paid off, and I couldn’t be more proud of this team and our accomplishments! This season has been one that I will never forget, and I am so grateful for everything that I have gotten to experience during these amazing 9 months!