Cheerleading: Riverhead advances to semifinals at Nationals

The Riverhead varsity cheerleading team is back in familiar territory today: the National High School Cheerleading Championship presented by Universal Cheerleaders Association.

While the Blue Waves have routinely reached the national competition in recent years, they’ve also found themselves in uncharted territory today. The Blue Waves’ cheer squad advanced to the semifinals after its opening routine this morning while competing in Small Varsity Division I at the competition in Orlando, Fla. The Blue Waves made history, advancing out of the preliminaries for the first time in program history, according to the team’s Facebook page.

The Blue Waves are one of 15 teams still alive among the “A” teams; two teams have advanced straight to the finals: Bullitt East High School and El Dorado High School.

Riverhead was in seventh place going into the semifinals, which started at 6 p.m.

The Blue Waves, who have nine seniors on their 17-girl team, are scheduled to perform in the semifinals at 7:12 p.m. The finals are Sunday.

The competition is available online via live stream, but it is not free. The videos of each team’s routine are posted online afterward.

Last year, the Blue Waves finished 20th in the preliminaries.

Check back for updates.