UPDATE at 2:25 p.m. Jan. 29:A cheerleading team was disqualified, which bumps the USI cheer team up to second place.

Senior history major Ben Hanson never thought he would be a cheerleader.

“It wasn’t something I intentionally sought out,” Hanson said. “I was asked to help about three years ago, and I told them I would help them if they needed an extra person. I never saw myself being a cheerleader.”

But he found out he enjoyed it.

“It was something I could see myself doing for USI,” Hanson said.

This year was Hanson’s second year competing at the Cheerleading Championship, where the USI cheer team placed second on Jan. 18.

The team has finished in the top five for the seventh time in eight years.

“We had high hopes. There was unfortunately a little bit of a disappointment (placing third),” Hanson said. “We all worked very hard to get where we were. I guess you can say we expected more.”

A broken wrist made the team pause for a second about their high hopes. It was still a goal, but any injury made them stop for a second.

Cheerleaders receive more injuries than basketball, football and baseball combined, Hanson said.

“I guess that’s the nature of throwing people up and catching them,” he said.

The cheerleader who broke her wrist continued to practice with her cast on, Hanson said.

“To me, that shows the drive that people don’t tend to see in cheerleading,” Hanson said.

He said they pushed themselves a little harder than previous years.

“We wanted more than top five,” he said. “I guess we’ve always wanted more, but we decided this year to commit the extra time in.”

The cheer team’s Assistant Coach, Sara Fehrenbacher, said the team usually practiced three to four times a week, but then picks up the notch after fall finals. The cheer team got three to five days off around Christmas, and then it practiced every day leading up to nationals.

“The type of cheerleading in high school or at basketball games is different,” she said.

She said practicing the team’s national routine helped prepare the team, but it’s limiting.

“They are very limited with what kind of stunts we do at basketball games,” Fehrenbacher said.

Senior elementary education major Devan Brady said the skills done this year were more difficult than previous years.

“The people who beat us – their skills were really hard, too,” Brady said. “We keep getting better every year, but so are all the other teams.”

She has one more year to participate in nationals, but Hanson and senior Madison Burklow are graduating.

“(Burklow’s) an amazing flyer,” Brady said. “And it’s going to be really hard to replace (Hanson).”