COSTA MESA : Cheers Greet Squad After Competition

For once, Costa Mesa High School’s cheerleaders were on the other side, receiving cheers from family and friends at John Wayne Airport as they returned home from a competition in Orlando, Fla., where they earned high marks.

The 15-member cheerleading squad, the Spirit Leaders, came in 18th place out of 120 high schools that competed from across the country last weekend.

The girls had raised $20,000 to attend the event.

“It was the best two minutes and six seconds of my life,” 17-year-old senior Heidi Lightvoet said Tuesday, referring to the squad’s performance at Disney’s MGM Studios.

Said 17-year-old Jamie Gomez of the trip: “It really brought us all together. We spent a lot of time with each other. We bonded.”

The national competition took place Saturday, and the 18th-place ranking was considered a feat. The top 16 teams go on to the finals.

This was the first time Costa Mesa’s squad competed on a national level.

Christie Hoover, the team’s coach and choreographer, said she studied films of past competitions to prepare for the performance and tried to give the judges what they wanted: difficult moves, plenty of synchronization and lots of level changes.

“We ended with a Russian split leap,” said Hoover, 20, a former Spirit Leader who now attends Orange Coast College. “It’s one of the more difficult moves.”

Just as difficult, perhaps, was mustering the money to make the trip to Florida.

The squad held “cheer camps” for elementary students at $25 per person.

But their big break came when a former student, the owner of a cruise company in the Bay Area, donated a $7,200 Alaskan cruise for two. They raffled the trip off, earning $7,700 from it.

“We’re very proud of them,” Principal Ed Harcharik said.