Thiel College cheer team hosting clinic to raise funds for second trip to national competition

Posted January 13, 2023 Print

GREENVILLE, Pa.-- The Thiel College cheerleading team is hosting a college prep stunt clinic for high school students on Sunday, Jan. 22 at the College to help fundraise for the team’s return trip to the National Cheerleaders Association’s College Nationals competition.

Attendees will work with members of the Tomcat cheer team get a head start on developing try-out material.

Anyone interested in attending the clinic should email coach Randall Burnett M.A.’22.

The Tomcats earned the program’s highest finish in a national event with last year’s second-place finish and earned return trip to nationals to be held April 6-8 in Daytona Beach, Fla. with a bronze bid that was awarded for learning and performing new skills demonstrated at a summer camp at Gannon University in August. The team also earned the summer camp’s only silver bid to the competition based on how well the team tailored choreography to their squad with a combination of skills including tumbling, jumps, stunts, and crowd leading.

The team’s first competition is February 11 at Penn State-Behrend.

The team is preparing for the national competition by “being leaders in the classroom and in the practice room,” Burnett said.

Thiel will be making a reappearance in the Rally Routine Division after taking home the silver last year.

“That was the highest we have ever placed at Nationals in program history,” Burnett said. “I have built this program on the foundation of being better than we were yesterday, and these athletes amaze me every day with their accomplishments. It was always a dream of mine to coach a winning program, and I have the ability to do it for a team that I hold close to my heart and who shares my love of this sport. I am proud of the program we’ve built over the past five years, and I will continue to push this team to be great and achieve their goals because we are Tomcat Proud.”