This makes the 18th National Championship the Kentucky Cheer-leading squad has won…that makes the 7 basketball championships seem kind of small. Yeah, I know it’s cheer-leading, but anytime UK dominates something it’s got to make you feel good.
Here’s their performance….
and here’s the breakdown from ukathletics.com
Head coach Jomo Thompson and the cheerleading squad has now claimed three consecutive national championships, including 14 out of the last 16 years.
The Wildcats finished way ahead of the competition, posting a final score of 96.517 out of 100. Alabama finished second with an 89.517 and Central Florida finished third with an 88.517.
“Each one we win is just as special as the first one,” said Thompson, who has now won 12 national championships during his time both cheering and coaching at UK. “It is great to see the kids work so hard and accomplish a goal. We always have adversity, it comes up every year. A couple of kids got the stomach bug down here but we battled through it and didn’t let anything stop us from our goal. We did what we set out to do: win another national title.”
Kentucky won eight straight national titles from 1995 to 2002 before finishing second in 2003. The Wildcats then won three straight from 2004 to 2006, falling short in 2007 with a third-place finish. UK has since claimed the title the last three years. Since Kentucky won its first title in 1985, it has won in 1987, 1988, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010 – more than any other Division IA school.
“It never gets old,” Thompson said. “I enjoy winning. I want to collect as many rings as we can get, and so does this program. That is something that we strive for every year. It we get second or third, we are not satisfied with that. We want first place.”
Kentucky blue is spread all over the top three with several former UK cheerleaders working on the Alabama and UCF staff. Former UK assistant coach David McDowell is now the head cheerleading coach at Alabama. McDowell was a UK cheerleader from 2001 to 2003 and took over assistant coaching honors from 2004 to 2006. UCF’s coach also cheered at UK in the early 1990s.
