By Kerri Linsenbigler
Features Assignment Editor
The last few weeks, Bonaventure basketball fans have had a lot to cheer about. Students spent days traveling to see the Bonnies play up close and personal. The students with the best seats in the house, however, weren’t those kids down the hall, but the cheerleaders.
“It’s an experience only a few people get to have,” said Abbie Milliman, a senior co-captain of the cheerleading squad. “It’s so cool to be on the court at every game and be a part of the action.”
The cheerleaders don’t usually travel with the basketball teams, Milliman said. For postseason games this year, tournament rules specified each school had to have cheerleaders and a band present for both its men’s and women’s teams.
“You felt like you were actually part of it,” Taylor McElroy, a senior co-captain, said. “It’s so different being right there on the floor. It was just an amazing feeling.”
Katelyn Schrock, a junior journalism and mass communication major and a member of the team, agreed.
“It was the most amazing experience of my life here at college,” Schrock said. “I just felt completely privileged and honored to be invited and to be right in the front row of all the action.”
The cheerleaders traveled to Atlantic City, N.J.; Nashville, Tenn.; Tallahassee, Fla. and Raleigh, N.C. during the last four weeks. Regina Penepent, a sophomore, said she didn’t expect to be in Atlantic City for so long, let alone watch the men win a championship.
“I didn’t have enough clothes for that week,” she said. “I was just expecting to come back the next day. After we won (the championship), we were dancing out on the court. Then we walked outside of the arena and all the students (were) dancing to the Saint Louis band. It was just insane.”
Before this season, the cheerleaders had never traveled to a postseason tournament with the women’s basketball team, said McElroy, a marketing major. The cheerleaders said they grew closer with the members of the women’s team and couldn’t be prouder of the team’s accomplishments.
“I’m just so happy for them because they’re finally getting more respect,” Penepent, an education major, said.
McElroy said everyone’s professors encouraged them to travel and helped them make up missed assignments.
“Most of the teachers were very accommodating,” she said. “I think just because they were happy (the teams) were there, too. All their emails ended with ‘Go Bona’s!’”
The cheerleaders said the exposure St. Bonaventure got from the Atlantic 10 and NCAA tournaments will only benefit the school, and, in turn, the cheerleading program. The girls said they have gotten questions about next year’s tryouts, and they said they hope there will continue to be interest in the team.
Most importantly, however, the girls appreciated being recognized for their work and support of the basketball teams.
“During the speeches, the administration always thanks so many people for coming out to the games,” Milliman, an education major, said. “In the four years I’ve been on the squad, we’ve never gotten one ‘thank you,’ not one ‘good job.’ And after the women lost the Sweet 16 game and we were getting on the bus to go home from the Buffalo airport, Coach (Jim) Crowley came to the back of the bus and personally thanked all the cheerleaders. It made us feel that we were really a part of the teams.”
linsenka10@bonaventure.edu
