“It’s always an adventure traveling with the West Chester cheerleaders,” third-year cheerleader Brittany Stellar joked.At 5:45 p.m. on Friday, the squad’s chartered bus came to a screeching halt at mile marker 263 of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and remained there until just past 7:00 p.m. en route to the school’s football game at Edinboro University. The gridlock was due to a multi-car accident several miles up the road, which shut down both lanes of the expressway.
This was the second consecutive road trip that had the cheerleaders arrive at their destination several hours past the Mapquest-projected arrival time. This time, the cheerleaders would not check into the Meadville Days Inn until 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning, a full three hours later then expected.
One day before last year’s football regular season finale at Slippery Rock, Lynn Swann’s tour bus spent two hours broken down along the shoulder of the very same turnpike. The bus emblazoned with a smiling photo of the runner-up in last year’s gubernatorial race and former Pittsburgh Steelers’ great, just happened to be carrying this same group of cheerleaders.
While the highlight of Friday’s delay was the act of charity from several cheerleaders, welcoming a young toddler and her mother aboard the bus to use the bus’s restroom, it paled in comparison to the two hour post-breakdown police escort the group received en route to their game at The Rock.
Third year cheerleader Jenna Komosinski put it best when she said, “Half the fun is getting there.