Westhampton Beach Cheerleaders Take National Stage

Lana Blowes stepped on stage and couldn’t contain her excitement.

While there were some nerves as her Westhampton Beach varsity cheerleading team competed in the Universal Cheerleaders Association National High School Cheerleading Championship at Walt Disney World Resort for the first time in program history this weekend, the squad’s senior captain knew that no matter the outcome, making it to that moment was an achievement.

“I think it was a great step to getting our name out there,” Blowes said. “We worked our way here. We earned the bid. We did the fundraising. And I was already so proud of what the program accomplished. I couldn’t have wished for a better ending to my last season.”

The Hurricanes claimed a spot to compete among other Small Varsity Division II schools with their 13th-place finish their first time competing in the UCA Empire Regional Competition at Iona University in New Rochelle December 15. Westhampton Beach had scored 78.1 points with no deductions. At nationals, the Hurricanes ranked 10th in their group during the preliminary round. They scored 63.6 points after a 1.5-point deduction.

“I am so proud of them,” head coach Alexa Bennett-Rosman said. “Taking a stage of that caliber for the first time is not an easy task, and they took it with Westhampton Beach pride. They pushed past small mistakes and finished the routine super strong.”

“We worked so hard this season to get where we are, and it really felt like we deserved it when we got on the stage and performed our routine with each other,” Blowes said. “It felt like all our hard work paid off.”

The team of four freshmen, eight sophomores, three juniors and one senior progressed over the course of the competitive season to add stunts like one-and-a-half turns — known as 540 spins — tick tocks, toss to hands and inversions to their routine. Thinking about how far they’d come after losing 10 seniors to graduation last season made the second-year head coach emotional on the lead-up to their last performance.

“I teared up talking to them backstage because I am so proud,” Bennett-Rosman said. “Being down here as a head coach and seeing the girls see everything for the first time was incredible. It was really magical.”

Junior co-captain Kara Salvaggio attested to that experience.

“It was a lot of fun,” she said. “ It was definitely a nerve-wracking environment at first, especially practicing alongside national championship-winning teams, but coach told us that if we can hit our skills there we can anywhere, and that was really motivating.”

Blowes said the team was able to watch teams from all over inside different arenas.

“We got to compete in a different space in front of different people and it was a really great, especially for our first time there,” the senior said. “All of the other cheerleaders were really nice, too. Whenever you passed someone you would say ‘Good luck’ or ‘Good job.’ It was of course a bit of a scary and stressful place to be competing at a national competition, but our coaches kept us calm and made sure we felt prepared.”

Bennett-Rosman said it was her student-athletes, though, who made it happen.

“This group has been so fun to coach,” she said. “They are so motivated and have so much determination. They are funny and kind and genuinely great kids. It has been truly inspiring seeing all they have achieved, because they put their minds to it and made it happen. Everyone sees the final outcome, but I was able to see what happened inside the four walls of practice every day and what they did to get to this point.”

And the girls are already talking about next season.

“They’re excited about the journey,” Bennett-Rosman said, “and they have big goals in mind.”