While the Dallas County football team has stayed busy pumping iron and running plays this offseason, the Hornets cheerleading squad has stayed just as busy gearing up for the season ahead and brought home several training camp trophies to prove it.

Dallas County’s cheerleading squad placed in the top five of six different competitions at a camp run by the Universal Cheerleading Association last weekend at the University of Alabama. The squad won six trophies altogether, with two second place finishes, a third place finish, and a fifth place finish in numerous events. The Hornets mascot, Donnie Ross, also won two trophies.

“This is his first year being the school mascot. He received mascot camp champ. I had two girls receive All-American and then my captain, Alanna Hatter received an invitation from UCA,” Hornets cheerleading sponsor Christy Bennett said. “There was 400 plus girls there and only four of them got invited to try out as UCA cheerleaders and my captain Alanna Hatter was one of them and that is a major accomplishment.”

Bennett called the squad’s performance a “major accomplishment”, as the Hornets had their best overall performance during her five years as a cheerleading sponsor.  The trophy she was most proud of was the one the Hornets won for Home Pom.

“Whoever wants to participate brings their home dance, which is a combination of dance and cheering,” Bennett said. “You come up with your own version and you compete. That’s what we won second place in.”

She said the girls could never have placed as well as they did without the support of parents.

“I have very supportive parents,” Bennett said. “If the parents didn’t trust me with their daughters, back me up, I could not have helped this squad accomplish this.”

Along with schools in-state, squads came from Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas to compete in the competitions.

“Nobody really understands how cheerleading camp goes. We are walking out from the dorm at six-thirty in the morning, and we don’t get back until nine o’ clock at night,” Bennett said. “They are taught, first day there, a routine and two cheers. They have two and a half days to perfect it like they want it and add to it.”

Bennett said the competitions are something the cheerleading squad only does in the offseason and now the focus is completely on football.

“We won’t do any more competitions,” Bennett said. “We are strictly just working with the school. We are all there helping — the kids get involved the parents get involved — in backing up the football players and the coaches.”

Bennett said her squad worked very hard to earn the results they had.

“It is all due to dedication, hardwork and discipline,” Bennett said “The girls worked hard. We practiced hard weeks prior to it.”