All-Americans for the 2025 NAIA Competitive Cheer season have been announced following the National Championship and Dordt’s Raya Zevenbergen (Junior; Sioux Center, Iowa) is the first ever Dordt cheer athlete to earn All-American status. Zevenbergen was named to the NAIA All-America 2nd Team.
“I am so incredibly proud of Raya for achieving All-American honors this year! She is the very first cheerleader in Dordt’s history to every receive All-American, and she is extremely deserving of this honor. Raya is a fantastic flyer and tumbler for our cheer program, and has worked extremely hard this year to increase her difficulty and execution in her stunting and tumbling,” said Dordt Cheer Coach Mel Knobloch.
Zevenbergen has twice been named to the GPAC 1st Team in all-conference selections and she was named a Daktronics NAIA Scholar-Athlete for the second year in a row.
Cheer All-Americans are determined by national championship judges, and each team is mad up by score of 18 student-athletes, unless multiple athletes are tied for the 18th spot on a team. Student-athletes are recorded doing four elements: toe tuck, triple jump combination, jump combination, round off back handspring full twisting layout, and stunts. They are graded on a scale of 1-5 ranging from poor technique to superior form and technique.
