Green and GOLD: The USF Coed Cheer team defended their first place title at the 2022 UCA National Championship.
Courtesy of USF
By Max Steele
Following the program’s first ever national championship in 2021, the University of South Florida’s Coed Cheer extended their reign as the team claimed victory in the 2022 Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA) Division 1A finals.
The Bulls had two cheer teams, Coed and All-Girl, competing in four total events in the UCA tournament, all in which they advanced to the final round hosted at Walt Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando from Jan. 14 to 16.
Alongside the traditional event, the USF teams competed in the newly introduced “Game Day” event. According to Varsity Spirit, the Game Day event is meant to portray a college sports game and consists of school fight songs, a situational sideline, a timeout and cheering fans.
USF’s Coed team, head coached by Gillian Guadagnino, placed first amongst 16 teams in the traditional event and second amongst 17 in the Game Day event.
In the final round of the traditional event, USF’s first-place performance earned a 93.9 score (Varsity Spirit). In second place came the University of Alabama with an event score of 93.1.
In the Game Day event, USF earned a second-place final score of 96.3, just short of the University of Cincinnati’s first-place score of 97.2.
“[USF] worked harder than any other team I’ve ever coached and I have been coaching at the collegiate level for 12 years,” Guadagnino said when asked about her team. “Every day they came in and pushed themselves to make sure they were practicing how they wanted to compete.”
USF’s All-Girl team, head coached by Sandy Clarke, placed fifth amongst 13 in the traditional event with a score of 86 and fourth amongst 10 in the Game Day event with a score of 94.77.
Brooke Penkal, a senior integrated public relations and advertising major and member of the USF Coed Cheer team, had nothing but praise for her team and experience with the program.
“It feels surreal to win back-to-back titles with this program and we could not be more proud to represent USF,” Penkal said. “This season our coaches taught us to compete with our hearts and that’s what we did.”
“We are a family,” Penkal said when asked about the team’s chemistry. “We believed in each other last year and we did it again this year. It’s all about trust.”
The Coed team has proven their dominance in the nationwide tournament throughout recent years, placing fourth in 2019, fifth in 2020 and now back-to-back champions in 2021 and 2022.
