MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. | The Florida Memorial Cheer Team scored 82.6 points as they defeated Langston (69.6) in the 2023 Virtual Cheer Competition on HBCU League Pass +. The victory marks the 14th highest score so far this season in the NAIA.

"In the NAIA we have to do four competitions before our cheerleading conference finals; so this was a virtual competition against Langston," said head cheerleading coach Ayana Harris.

Harris, who is also a Miami-Dade County judge, took over the program as the head coach just a couple of years ago – after previously serving as an assistant coach before that – and has already made an imprint on Lions' program.

"We started our competitive program at Florida Memorial last year, and it was very challenging," said Harris. "Changing over a game day program to a competitive program is a very daunting task. Recruiting has to go into play as well as just training and preparation of our athletes. Last year at our conference finals, we only had six cheerleaders on the mat, and the minimum is eight, so that was really challenging, but we fought through it, and we were able to get to this point. Now we have 12 athletes on the mat, and they have been recruited from near and far; some of them are from right here in our back yard in Florida, and some are from as far away as Louisiana and Las Vegas. We have a lot of great athletes on this team that have worked really hard this season."

Later this week, the FMU cheer squad will travel to New Orleans to compete in a cheer competition at Xavier University before heading to Mobile, Ala. to compete in the conference championships.

Last year, Harris was named 2021-22 SUN Competitive Cheer Coach of the Year.