The USASF score sheet, explained
A map for the sheet you are handed after awards. Sheets change every season and differ between event producers, so read this beside the current sheet your event published.
Three blocks, weighted in this order
- Building — stunts, pyramids and basket tosses. The largest share of the sheet.
- Tumbling and jumps — standing tumbling, running tumbling and jumps.
- Overall — formations and transitions, creativity, dance and showmanship.
If building went badly, a clean dance section cannot make it up. That weighting is why coaches spend most of practice on stunts.
Difficulty and execution are separate scores
Difficulty rewards what was attempted: the level of the skills, how many athletes or groups did them, variety and transitions. Execution judges how clean it was: technique, timing and synchronisation across the whole floor.
A hard skill done messily can score well on difficulty and poorly on execution. On many current sheets execution works down from the section maximum, so widespread small breaks cost more than one isolated miss.
Jumps are capped
On the Worlds sheet, a team that performs the required number of jumps earns the maximum jump difficulty. More jumps add nothing; what is left to win is execution.
Deductions come off the top
Falls, boundary steps, going over time and illegal skills are taken off the total, separately from the category scores. Building falls cost more than tumbling falls, and a pyramid or basket-toss fall costs most. An illegal skill scores nothing for difficulty in its section and takes a deduction as well.
Reading your own sheet
- Find the raw score and the deductions line. The difference is the final score.
- Look for the biggest gap between difficulty and execution. That is usually where cleaning pays most.
- Check which deductions were building and which were tumbling. They are priced differently.
- Keep the sheet. Photograph it into BaseCount and it sits beside our estimate of the same routine.
The score calculator does the arithmetic, and how cheer routines are scored covers school and rec sheets too.
BaseCount is not affiliated with or endorsed by any governing body or event producer named here.
Score a routine against the USASF sheet See a sample analysis