Makayla Thiry was a freshman at her dream school, participating in a sport that was only offered at 34 other college and universities around the country and excelling at it.

She was ecstatic.

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

The tiny NCAA Division II school of Urbana University in Ohio, founded in 1850, couldn't withstand the hit of sending its students home and refunding their money. It closed in late March and shut down its 14 varsity sports with it.

Including AcroTumbling, a unique sport for which Thiry had developed a passion.

So rare is the sport that the Urbana roster had women from nine different states and Canada on it.

The Moniteau graduate and Harrisville native was one of them. But she and her teammates soon found out their life had been turned upside down in a text.

“We were all completely devastated,” Thiry said. “Coach texted us and I just happened to have most of the team in my room. We were all crying.”

Thiry didn't know what to do next.

When she was looking for colleges while still a senior at Moniteau, she was heavily recruited because of her athleticm and skill as a competitive cheerleader.

Thiry has more medals than she knows what to do with after excelling in cheerleading all the way back to her Moniteau youth league cheer days. She also was a part of numerous competitive cheer wins with the Rockers all-star cheer team and the FCA Gems all-star cheerleading squad.

Even though she had never before competed in AcroTumbling — a sport that blends gymnastics and cheerleading — colleges were clamoring for her.

“I got messages from schools all the way from Arizona to Florida asking me if I wanted to be on their Acro-Tumbling team,” Thiry said. “I even had schools contact me about doing other sports I'd never done before, like lacrosse and rowing.”

But Thiry had her heart set on Urbana and accepted a scholarship there.

Those same schools that recruited her while she was in high school came around again after the news of Urbana's closure spread.

Thiry, though, took another path.

“I didn't really want to go through the recruiting process again,” Thiry said. “It's hard to find an AcroTumbling school as it is and none were close to home. I just wanted to be close to home.

Thiry enrolled at Slippery Rock University and tried out recently for the co-ed cheerleading team for The Rock.

She made the team.

“I was pretty confident I would get a spot,” Thiry said. “I was nervous about what team I would make. I wanted to make the co-ed team.”

That's the team that competes at national events — something Thiry didn't want to miss out on.

She said she still misses AcroTumbling.

At first, Thiry was nervous about trying a sport that was so unusual.

“I was pretty good at tumbling from cheerleading,” Thiry said. “The acrobatics was something new.”

Like hanging in the air upside down. Like doing handstands.

“It was scary to do some of those things at first,” Thiry said. “Until I did them for the first time. I would say it took a couple of weeks to not be so nervous about it.”

The Urbana AcroTumbling team was 4-1 before everything was shut down and the school closed.

Thiry said she knows she will get the itch to compete in AcroTumbling again, but “I don't want to switch schools again.”

She was lucky this time around.

While all of the credits she earned at Urbana transferred to Slippery Rock University, not all of her teammates were as lucky.

The hardest part for Thiry will be getting used to a new campus and meeting new friends again.

“It's going to be like I'm a freshman all over again,” she said.

But the exersize science major has managed to land on her feet — something she is quite accustomed to doing.

And, who knows, she says. Maybe SRU will start an AcroTumbling team one day.

“If someone starts a team at SRU,” she said, “I'd definitely try to be on it.”