For most cheerleading programs, second place is something to aspire to. Most years, a second-place finish means a school has the best cheerleading team in the nation — other than University of Kentucky, of course.At the 2011 College Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championship at the Walt Disney Resort in Orlando, Fla., second place was where UK found itself, meaning that a dynastic streak of three consecutive national titles had come to an end, as the Wildcats finished behind the Alabama Crimson Tide.”We’re disappointed,” UK cheerleading head coach Jomo Thompson said. “It’s not what we came here for. We came here to get first place and we came up a little short. These things are to be expected; you can’t win them all.”Second place was an unfamiliar spot for the Wildcats, as UK has won an unprecedented 18 national championships.”We had a great performance,” Thompson said. “We had two mistakes, but overall I thought we were above everybody else; we were just unable to persuade the judges.”Defeat is a tough thing to swallow for a program that has ruled the world of college cheerleading over the past two decades. On top of winning three consecutive titles, UK had won 14 of 16 Universal Cheerleading Association national championships, only falling short in 2003 (second place) and 2007 (third place).  In each of those years, UK bounced back by winning the following national title with the previous defeat as a prime motivator. Thompson and his team will look to accomplish that again.”The past three years, we’ve had a good feeling, a celebration,” Thompson said. “This year, there’s no celebration and I told them to remember this feeling and use it. This should be something that drives them all next year.”The new national champions, Alabama, are led by David McDowell, a former UK cheerleader and assistant coach with close ties to the program.”First of all, I want to congratulate David and the Alabama cheerleaders,” Thompson said.  “They had a great team and I feel like we had a part in that. He cheered here and was an assistant here. He learned a lot from me and just from watching this program.”Even though Thompson takes pleasure in the success of a former colleague and pupil, he looks forward to the chance to compete with him again next year.”We won three in a row and just weren’t able to get that fourth one,” Thompson said. “We just have to use it and focus hard on next year.”UK’s dance team also participated in the national championship under second-year head coach Dawn Duncan Walters. UK finished fourth in the pom category and sixth in hip hop, an improvement from last year’s fifth-place finish in pom.