FOUR PEAT

NUPep Squad not done winning yet

They looked into the future and saw that another UAAP cheerdance competition crown was forthcoming.

Dressed in futuristic outfits, the National University Pep Squad dazzled the 17,850-strong crowd at Smart Araneta Coliseum yesterday with a performance like no other to emphatically rule the annual contest for the fourth consecutive season.

The electrifying routine of the NU cheer dancers was simply light-years away from the competition, a solid proof their victories the past three seasons were not mere strokes of luck.

“We believed that we can win this because we’ve claimed victory right from the start,” said NU Pep Squad head coach Ghicka Bernabe.

“We’re confident because we knew what we’re capable of achieving.”

For a while, the jampacked crowd had forgotten the absence of the University of the Philippines Pep Squad as NUseamlessly transitioned from one hair-raising act to another, made impressive by a dance performance executed almost without a flaw.

Eight-time champion UP begged off this season supposedly in protest against its third-place finish last year.

It also didn’t help that the UAAP hired the same group of organizers.

There were imperfections with the NU routine as a whole—minute errors that the performers easily rectified—but it certainly erased last year’s doubts that the Bulldogs Pep Squad’s hat trick wasn’t convincing.

“This is what we want to prove all along,” said Bernabe of her Pep Squad that also swept the side events—the over-the-top pyramid title worth P50,000, an additional P25,000 for the best toss award and another P25,000 for the group stunts plum.

Those are on top of the P340,000 that the Bulldogs took home for winning a fourth title in a row, the second school to register a “four-peat” after the UST Salinggawi Dance Troupe accomplished five straight titles from 2002 to 2006.

“The ultimate target is to achieve a six-peat,” said Bernabe after NU scored 711 out of a possible 800 points.

FEU, champion in 1998 and 2009, placed second worth P200,000 while Adamson won P100,000 for finishing third, its best since landing second in 2001.

UST, which has eight titles along with UP, wound up fourth (650).