2 Middletown Students Compete In World Cheer Championship At Disney

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — A cheerleading team that includes two students — and a teacher! — from the Middletown school district will compete in ESPN’s Wide World of Sports on April 23-25 in Walt Disney World.

The cheerleading team is called Special Forces and they hail from Cheer Dream Xplosion, a cheer program based in Matawan for girls ages 8-21 with special needs.

Special Forces was one of only five teams across the globe chosen to compete.

The Middletown girls who will be competing are Hannah Piasecki, a student at Thompson Middle School and Alexis Applegate, a student at Thorne Middle School. Middletown teacher Brooke Palle even coaches the team.

Every day, the girls practice at the Cheer Dream Xplosion gym off Hwy. 34.

"These cheerleaders are students with (special needs) who will be the first squad in history to represent Central New Jersey," according to the Middletown school district.

Cheer Dream Xplosion was started by local woman Lucia Millan, who said she started the program eight years ago after her own daughter's battle with scoliosis sadly ended her dream of competitive cheerleading, according to News 12.

Millan said she wanted to start a program that would allow all young women — of all range of abilities — to compete in an environment with high expectations and competition standards.

"They just want to be like all the other cheerleaders; they want to be able to do the same thing. And for us to be able to give that to them, and give them a home … just make them feel that they're no different in any way," Millan told News 12 New Jersey.

This GoFundMe has been started to help send the cheer squad to Orlando: https://www.gofundme.com/f/spe...

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