The term “blue blood” is typically associated with college football or basketball royalty; teams that have a longstanding tradition of excellence. On the gridiron you’ve got Ohio State, Alabama, Notre Dame and more. On the hardwood, the programs of Duke, Kentucky and Kansas, among others, come to mind.

However, there is no rule stating that “blue blood” is exclusively reserved for those two sports.

With three national championships in the last three years, NC State’s cheerleading program has firmly cemented itself as a blue blood of collegiate cheerleading.

“When you have seven national championships … you know you’re one of the top programs,” said Jason Ybarra, an assistant coach for the Wolfpack. “When you have stunts that are named after your program, when you have people reference you from a national level.”

In early April, the Wolfpack brought home two national championships, one in the small coed cheer division and one in the game day division. For small coed, this year’s championship was the second in the last three years, as the Pack also won it in 2016. This year was the inaugural year of game day being a championship division, so the Wolfpack is officially the first team to ever win a game day national championship.

Justin Hefner, a graduate student member of the small coed team, summed up the cheerleading squad’s performance with one key word: us.

“We chose us,” Hefner said. “We’ve had ups and downs as a team … and finally we choose us and that is when everybody comes together.”

The small coed division consists of 16 females and four males, given three minutes to perform their routines. According to Gianna Rizzi, a fourth-year studying biology, the Wolfpack’s small coed team was sort of a mini all-star team within the program.

“We decided to take the talented members of large coed and the talented members of small coed and put them together for small coed so it is kind of like superbuilding a team,” Rizzi said.

The Pack’s decision to form a small coed “super team” paid off in the end.

After finishing in third place in the preliminary round, trailing Oklahoma State and Louisville, the Wolfpack narrowly edged Oklahoma State in the small coed division, tying the Cowboys with a raw score of 96.03, but ultimately prevailing due to the judges’ deduction of 1.25 points from the Cowboys’ score as a result of minor miscues during the performance.

Although disappointed to place lower than expected in the preliminaries, Ybarra said the squad knew it was close to winning.

“We knew we were within reach,” Ybarra said. “We knew what we needed to do to move up those two spots.”

The Pack’s small coed team had confidence that even if Oklahoma State and Louisville both hit their routines as expected, the Wolfpack had an end-all, be-all routine to win.

“Even if they were to hit their two routines,” Ybarra said. “We felt like we could go back there and still win it.”

The game day routine consists of thirty team members, comprised of members of the cheerleading squad, dance team, band and a featured twirler. For a short three-minute span, the game day group brings to life the hype and excitement of a normal game day, performing cheers, the NC State fight song and “Red and White.”

Keaton McDaniel, a second-year studying agricultural science, described the game day division as something a person with little cheerleading expertise would recognize most.

“Game day is more of the traditional sideline performance,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel also laid out how the Pack’s game day team wanted to set the bar high from the get-go.

“All season we used the phrase ‘set the bar,’” McDaniel said. “Our goal was to go out, do our routine, hit it to the best of our ability and set the bar for the game day division.”

And set the bar they did, dominating from start to finish. The Pack came in first in the preliminary round by almost three points more than the next closest contender, North Texas, and held off the Mean Green in the final round, winning 94.60-93.67.

When asked about the magic of the season, Ybarra had one word to assess his teams’ magical run.

“Indescribable,” Ybarra said. “That’s the only word.”

The magic of the season might be indescribable, but when talking about the NC State cheerleading program, two words come to mind:

Blue blood.