The University of Saskatchewan cheerleading team will test their stunts against the best in Canada Dec. 1. The squad is competing at the 2012 university national cheerleading competition at the Powerade Centre in Brampton, Ont.

The U of S cheer team has competed at the national tournament in each of the last four years and has placed third three consecutive times. Cheer captain Lindsay Berger has been with the team for the past five years and has seen the team grow, even in the wake of adversity.

“I believe the program has become stronger as a team over the years, especially after our split from Huskie Athletics,” Berger said.

Last year the U of S athletics department cut ties with the cheer team because cheerleading is not a varsity sport. The squad was told to stop choreographed cheering at Huskies home games and became a ratified club under the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union.

“We can’t rely on the name and the athletics department so we have more to prove now,” Berger said. “Even though we aren’t bearing the Huskie name we want to represent this university.”

The team will send 27 cheerleaders including four males, which puts the squad into the small co-ed division of the competition. The U of S club will compete against squads from the universities of Montreal, Carlton, Waterloo, McMaster and their interprovincial rival Regina.

The team has been training since the summer and practicing as much as four times a week since school started. As the competition gets closer, the practices become more intense in order to properly sync the choreographed cheer routine with the background music.

“We have been building up to this and preparing our athletes with specific skills over the past months, but we haven’t put it all together until just a month ago,” Berger said. “Now we have to perfect it.”

The team gym has been filling up with third-place trophies from the tournament for the past three years, but the team hopes to end that streak this year and move up on the podium.

“The expectation for this competition is to hit a clean routine that we can be proud of. The best-case scenario would be to finish first, but if we put our best effort out on the floor, that’s all we can do,” Berger said.

At the tournament, each team will have two opportunities to display their routine. The judges will grade both performances and take the team’s highest score of the two attempts.

“The first time you get the shakes out and the second time you usually place better because you’ve had a chance to feel the floor and the see the crowd,” Berger said.

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Photo: Raisa Pezderic/The Sheaf