The dance team is exploring alternatives for how to get to Daytona Beach, Fla., for its national competition this week after Skybus, the airline through which it had booked tickets, filed for bankruptcy last week.

After spending about $3,000 on plane tickets with the now out-of-business airline, the team is unsure of how it will get to Daytona.

“My mom had a flight with Skybus, so she hasn’t been refunded, much less the 30 people that we have on our team that came out of one account,” Ashley Beasley, a senior in biological sciences and one of three team captains, said. “Being bankrupt, we know it’s going to take awhile for them to get us any money at all.”

With that in mind, Beasley said the team may have to dip into the small amount of money it was trying to save for next year to help fund plane tickets for the trip. Other options include chartering a bus at the last minute or all the team members piling into each other’s cars and driving down.

Either way, Beasley said the team remains determined that nothing can stop it from reaching its ultimate destination this week.

“It’s stressful,” Beasley said. “But nobody thinks we’re not going.”

The team can’t get more help from Club Sports because it has already received its money for the year, Beasley said. She and the team’s other two captains, seniors Lauren Strasser and Jenna Patkunas, also said their team as a nonvarsity sport isn’t under the umbrella of the athletics department, though they’d gladly take any help from Athletics they could get.

“We’re desperate, honestly,” Strasser said. “We’ll take anything that they’re willing to give us — or anybody for that matter.”

The team took donations for its team posters from fans on Sunday who attended the dress rehearsal for its nationals routine. Julie Wofford, a freshman in the First Year College, said people were being very generous after hearing about the team’s plight.

“There was an article in The News & Observer today,” Wofford said. “So people are being really nice about donating money.”

Beasley said the most helpful thing the team could have happen might be to receive a loan, though she realizes it may be too late for that.

“We need a loan almost. We could [pay] it back when we got our refund back,” Beasley said. “But it’s just so last-minute.”

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the situation for the team, Beasley said, is the potential to distract team members from the competition.

She said she is hoping that doesn’t happen, but that their situation does not help.

“It is a little stressful because we want to worry about our dance,” she said.