Muleskinner

Issue date: 1/18/07 Section: News

dancin' queens­-Front L-R: Tiffany Johnson and Jenna Castleman perform with the rest of the Mulekickers at a basketball game. The Mulekickers competed in a national dance competition this weekend, where they placed fifth in the hip-hop division.

The Mulekickers huddled Saturday for their ritualistic chant, "Kickers, you know" prior to performing a dance that would earn them their first national ranking in more than nine years. The Mulekickers placed fifth in the hip-hop division and 12th in the open dance division at the Universal Cheerleading Association [UCA]/Universal Dance Association [UDA] 2007 College Cheer & Dance Team National Championship in Orlando, Fla.

The Mulekickers left for the competition Friday. Anne Best, the Mulekickers' coach, chaperoned 17 dancers.

The team performed their open division routine at 9:30 a.m. They competed against 28 teams in the semifinals and then performed their second dance at 3:42 p.m. for the hip-hop semifinals. Both routines were choreographed by Andrea Ruch, a professional dancer from Kansas City.

The Mulekickers were among 18 teams to advance to the finals in the open division. For the Mulekickers' final performance, they competed against the 12 finalists in the hip-hop division.
"They always perform above and beyond my expectations," Best said.

The Mulekickers qualified for the competition by submitting a video entry to UDA in November. The Mulekickers selected a routine they performed for the Homecoming pep rally as their entry. They taped the video 10 to 15 minutes before a football game, Best said. They received a fourth-place ranking out of the 31 teams that submitted entries.

"We had a lot to prove with a high ranking going into the competition because we were ranked higher than teams that have competed before," said Haley Sheriff, Mulekicker.

Although the Mulekickers have participated in competitions in the past, including last year's Nation's Best National All-Star & Collegiate Championship, this was their first national competition in at least nine years, Best said. Information regarding the Mulekickers' competition records is only available from 1998. For nationals, the Mulekickers competed against squads from Division II schools, Division III schools, junior colleges and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics [NAIA] schools.

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