First of all  O.C. should have known by now being a 5th or 6th year program that every athlete needs a foot on the performance mat before the music starts. This is not just a U.S.A rule; this has been at every competition for the last few seasons. Shame on you coaches for making it the fault of the penalty judges to catch the mistake you as a choreographer should know yourself. I assume you did not do your entire routine full out on the warm up mat so they assumed your athletes could not POSSIBLY be breaking a rule everyone knows; similar to if your athletes were warming up without shoes on. Would you expect the legality judges to inform you that is not acceptable either? (didn't think so)
Second of all, though U.S.A passed out at large bids to teams that already have them at actual awards, it should be fairly obvious that their award ceremonies are televised so did no one think that maybe they did not want to be handing out at worlds' bids to the 4th place teams on television?
Thirdly, though PC might have been better than PACE (well they were hands down, sorry pace but your dropped stunt and fallen basket did not impress me) the scores of sm. sr 5 were inflated because not only was the grand champion in this division, it was also the largest division, so the necessity to create a gap between the teams means the scores had to start higher and have a wider range.
And lastly, I love magic and am always impressed with their level of difficulty; with that being said they did not perform anywhere near the level of CA bullets. Though CA's routine was "watered down" what they did do, was done with almost perfection. Everything from their jump timing, to the massive height in their long tumbling, to their point flyers' violent (for lack of a better word) body positions is exactly what USA wants. CA is a program that knows what they are doing and they know how to hit the score sheet at every competition they go to. Whether it is spirit sports or U.S.A, they know how to tweak their routine to each judging panels liking.

As far as organizational aspects, was it perfect? No. But nothing can compare to a cheerpros competition where our athletes get to warm up on spring-less strips under those lovely bleachers at the long beach pyramid where awards always go an hour too long and the teams warm up and then get to sit for ages before they hit the competition floor. Yet we as coaches keep bringing our teams to these competitions. The beauty in all-star cheer being a business is that you don't have to pay 3 grand to compete at any given competition if you don't want to. We all knew going into this competition that if we wanted to win we had to clean everything up b/c that's the U.S.A style just like we skilled up our routines for spirit sports. Stop acting shocked, surprised, or annoyed; we all knew what we were getting.

Overall I thought the judging was what would be expected at a U.S.A competition in all divisions.

Congrats to all the competitors this weekend; it was an awesome competition!

**and Kudos to desert storm with your opposite leg full up/ high to high tic tocs- AMAZING!**