Not Competing

In addition to the good news we got about Kris’s dad, we also got some bad news about Alison’s cheer team.  Because of some health issues with a couple of girls on Ali’s team, they are not going to compete tomorrow in the UCA Qualifier in Milwaukee.  Ali’s Flyer has had concussion symptoms since October after falling and hitting her head, so she is out and they have had an alternate filling in for her.  Another girl, perhaps their top tumbler, is out due to having her tonsils removed.  I guess she has been out for a couple of weeks, since right after their Indian Invite performance.  She is not recovering as quickly as they had hoped and would be in danger of ripping her stitches out if she competed.  They were trying to have another alternate learn their routine in two or three days.  Add to that the crappy week of practice from a couple of the other girls who were just consistently not hitting their moves/stunts, and their coach just decided it was too much and pulled them from the Nationals qualifier they were supposed to do tomorrow night.

So the big question becomes, how do the girls qualify for nationals if they are not competing?  Apparently, UCA allows the teams to submit a video of a performance from review.  Form what I can gather from the notice, they have to petition to do it, and give a good reason for not actually competing in the qualifier.  So citing the health of a few of the girls, they were allowed to submit the video of their Indian Invite performance as consideration for getting a bid to the National competition in February.  The good news about that is that at least their petition was accepted.  So now we just sit back and wait to find out if they get a bid.  And actually, their Indian Invite performance was not too bad.  They had a couple of flubs, but for the most part it was pretty on.  So we are keeping our fingers crossed.  I hope we find out soon though since I need to get flights booked if we are going!