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Ascension Eagles enter 5 routines and win 5 trophies at ScotCheer European Cheer & Dance Championships

Ascension Eagles Cheerleaders attended ScotCheer European Cheer and Dance Championships April 8th-10th at the Caird Hall in Dundee, Scotland.
More than 1100 cheerleaders competed in the three-day event. Sixteen hundred spectators tickets were pre-sold before the Championships even started.

Forty-four Ascension Eagles and thirty fans traveled from London City Airport to Scotland on April 8th, filling up three aeroplanes. When one of the flights was cancelled, passengers had to be re-routed to Edinburgh.
As a result, Ascension Eagles Senior Individual competitors Patrick Asante and Aaron McKearney arrived with minutes to spare for their division. They were not allowed warm-up time and had to go straight on the competition floor. In a field of 14 individual competitors, Patrick placed 4th and Aaron placed 5th.

Ascension Eagles Junior Individual Tovonya Raybe won 1st place European Junior Champion. Tovonya, age 15 of Kingsford School said, "I was really pleased with my performance. There were 30 people in my division so I was amazed to be ranked number one! Patrick and Aaron had a bit of a bad run, with the flight being canceled, and then not having warm-up time. They still did well to win 4th and 5th. I tried extra hard because I knew I was representing all of Ascension and they were counting on me"

In addition to the three individual entries, Ascension Eagles entered their Youth team and Coed team. Each cheer team competed over two days, with scores from both days being added together for the final results.
At the end of day one, both Ascension teams were ranked second. Ascension Eagles Coed team had four drops, which cost them 20 points. Coed leader Robert Brown, said, "It was difficult because we were performing elite stunts and the warm-up rooms ceiling was too low for us to build properly. As a result, when we went out on the competition floor we werent as ready as we should have been. We were all pretty gutted over our performance because we knew we could do better."

On the second day of competition, ScotCheer organisers let the Elite teams have warm-up time on the actual competition floor. This made all the difference, and Ascensions teams hit perfect routines.
Ascension Eagles Cheer Extreme won 1st place European Youth Team Champions. Ascension Eagles Coed won 2nd place, European Cheer. Although their day two score was at least 27 points above the other teams in their division, it was not enough to recover from day one.

AEC Director Shara Brice MBE said, "We are proud of all our members. We learned a lot through this experience, and especially from all the unexpected things that happened to us. When our Coed team went on the stage to accept their second place trophy, the entire Arena gave them a standing ovation. Ive never seen anything like it. Ascension obviously earned their respect. Respect and strong character count for more than trophies any day. Still, its nice to add the five new trophies and two European banners to our collection. The memories of this weekend will stay with us for years to come".