Hundreds rose to their feet and erupted into eardrum-piercing screams and applause as a dozen young women in white tennis shoes, sequined ribbons and shiny makeup tore onto stage.

Illuminated by colored lights, they performed carefully choreographed dance steps to a booming bass beat and executed a stunt, lifting two of the smallest girls high above the rest.

Then, grabbing blue and silver pompoms, they shouted and gestured in unison:

"Stand up. Sa-lute. We're here to win!

"We're loud. We're proud. A-mer-i-can -- Firecrackers!"

Spectators cheered wildly, drowning out the music while the young women waved, blew kisses and dashed offstage.

The two-minute routine, featured at a two-day cheerleading competition recently at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, concluded the inaugural year for the All American Cheerleading Firecrackers, a Hanover County team made up of 12 young women with Down syndrome and other mental disabilities. They range in age from 11 to 24.

It also was the realization of a life-long dream for 20-year-old Sara Ruh of Rockville.

"Sara has always wanted to be a cheerleader," said her mother, Debra Ruh. "She owns every cheerleading movie ever made. It's her dream."

And, Sara Ruh points out, there's an extra bonus: "I've made a lot of friends."

Karen Gattuso said her daughter, Teresa, 20, watched the cheerleaders at her high school with longing. When they learned last fall that a team for girls and women with special needs was starting, they jumped at the opportunity.

"It's been a wonderful experience for the girls. I think they have a real understanding of what it is they're doing," Gattuso said. "They've just really come to be a real team."

Coach Elizabeth Rafferty was inspired to start the team after seeing a similar group perform at an out-of-town competition last year. She contacted groups including Special Olympics of Virginia and Hanover ARC to find interested women, then began holding practices once a week at the All American Cheerleading gym in the Hanover Industrial Air Park.

"No one else in the Richmond area has a program like this, so I think it serves a really great purpose," Rafferty said. "These girls don't have an opportunity to cheer at the high school or middle school level."

"They learn how to do gymnastics, they work on their motor skills, they dance, they cheer, they stunt. All those are things they can't do anywhere else."

And in competition they share the intensity.

"It's a lot of people," said Eva Edworthy, 15, daughter of Susie Edworthy. "You get kind of nervous. There's a lot of noise."

Rafferty raised money with help from area businesses and her parents to purchase uniforms, pompoms, music and other equipment for the team. With the support of All American Cheerleading owner Virginia Baldwin, the Firecrackers team program is offered at no cost to the cheerleaders or their families.

Rafferty said she hopes that with additional fundraising, the program can grow to include more participants and offer other programs, such as gymnastics. She also would like to raise enough to purchase more traditional cheerleading uniforms for team members, who compete in polo shirts and skirt-shorts.

"I'd really like for them to build their self-esteem, make friends outside of school and their work environments, and become more self-confident in their abilities and the things they can do," Rafferty said.

Rafferty, 27, a probation specialist for the Virginia Department of Corrections, was a varsity cheerleader at Patrick Henry High School and the College of William and Mary, and she coaches other cheerleading teams at All American. But aside from majoring in psychology in college, she had no experience working with people with special needs.

Her philosophy has been to coach the girls and women with special needs just like her other cheerleaders. She said girls from other cheerleading teams at the gym and at competitions have been supportive.

"This, for me, has been the most rewarding experience," she said. "I leave every day feeling better about what I'm able to do, and it just instills a sense of pride that they came in here not knowing a thing, and they leave so proud they can do a 2-minute-and-30-second-long routine just like everybody else, and they do it just as well."

Erin Hopkins, the 19-year-old daughter of Meg and Jim Hopkins, summed up what is best about being part of the team.

"I do my best," she said. "I work hard. I thank my parents for supporting me. I make my parents proud of me."