The Ohio State football team was not the only group of winners after the Fiesta Bowl.

Two Buckeye cheerleaders nailed field goals to raise $125,000 for charity and, in doing so, ended the game with a better field goal percentage than an All-American candidate, kicker Mike Nugent.

“That was my last football game ever as an Ohio State cheerleader and that was just awesome,” said Tara Zinslen, who hit her 20-yard field goal during halftime to raise $25,000. “First of all to be at the Fiesta Bowl and to have the honor of doing that at halftime, and then to actually make it.”

The other strong-legged Buckeye cheerleader is Mike Fresch, who connected on a 35-yard attempt to raise $100,000 for an Arizona-based charity supporting firefighters.

“I’ve had so many people say they saw it, I’m just really glad I didn’t miss,” Fresch said. “I played football and rugby in high school and soccer until eighth grade, so I didn’t think making the field goal would be a problem, but trying to do it in front of 25 million people was a little nerve-wracking.”

After the two were able to show off their place-kicking abilities in front of an audience across the world, they have become quasi-celebrities, appearing on various radio shows throughout Columbus and receiving congratulatory e-mails from people from as far away as South America.

Unfortunately for the pair, the weekend after the Fiesta Bowl was not quite as successful.

The OSU cheerleading squad traveled to Orlando to compete in the college nationals on Jan. 11 and came home in seventh place. It was not a bad finish for the team, but it had hoped for a higher spot.

“I came off the floor knowing we hit a great routine, with very few bobbles, no out of bounds and no major problems. I thought it was solid,” Zinslen said.

“I thought there was no way we’d be out of the top five,” Fresch added.

But the final standings came out with the Buckeyes two spots out of that top five. Since there is only one competition per year, they will have to live with seventh place until next January.

In the meantime, team members will be able to find plenty to keep themselves busy.

“We’re definitely a crowd-oriented squad, which means the neatest thing for us is when there’s the O-H-I-O chant going around the stands,” said Judy Bunting, the team’s coach. “At the bowl game that happened several times and that was really awesome, and then at Ohio Stadium it’s always neat.”

Now the team can focus on getting the crowd involved at basketball games, hockey games and volleyball matches. Fresch said he is looking forward to the remaining games this year, but that’s not the only thing he enjoys about being with the team in the winter.

“The most fun is practice,” he said. “Games obviously are fun — there’s nothing that compares to leading out the team and running across the Horseshoe or winning a nail-biter at the Schott. That’s incredible, but something like practice, where you’re trying new stuff you’ve never done before — like even tonight, I tried something I haven’t done before and that’s always exciting.

“It’s kind of fun holding up a girl with one arm in front of your buddies at a football game, but it’s also a lot of fun just being at practice,” he said. “Basically, as long as there are girls around, we have fun no matter what we do.”

The word might be spreading around campus. This season was the first in which Bunting and her staff had to cut a few males who tried out.

“We’re looking for athletes,” Fresch said. “Someone with a football background, wrestling, basketball — we just need guys that are big, who are going to be able to throw girls around.”

Tryouts for next year’s team will be held in a couple of months and Zinslen encourages anyone interested to give it a shot. If inspiration is needed, the national competition OSU just participated in will be aired on ESPN sometime in late March.

And, of course, the Fiesta Bowl, with cheerleaders in full force, will probably be aired on ESPN Classic several times during the next year or so.