DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - The Austin College cheer team opened up NCA Nationals with a strong performance on Thursday morning, and the 'Roos will now head into Saturday's finals ranked third out of 10 teams in their division.

The 'Roos, who are competing in the Spirit Rally Open Division that includes teams from across the country, posted a raw score of 84.90 and an event score of 21.225, which places them just behind Penn State Behrend and Thiel College in the standings.

Austin College currently sits ahead of the University of Texas-Dallas in fourth and Western Oklahoma State in fifth. Heading into Saturday, the top event score during Thurdsay's preliminaries was 22.950. Austin College will look to top that score on Saturday at 10:10 a.m. EDT.