Junior pee wee team also advances to regionals
SANTA CLARA
Two of the Hollister Vikings’ three competitive cheer teams have advanced to the Pacific Northwest Regional Championships, marking the sixth year in a row in which Hollister has advanced at least two teams to regionals.
Although the two teams earned similar results in Saturday’s competition, they couldn’t have been more different in their makeup.
Hollister’s pee wees claimed the Peninsula Cheer Championship for the second year in a row. The team of 20 girls was made up of mostly veteran cheerleaders, many of whom competed at the same level last year and went all the way to nationals.
On Saturday, they delivered on their promise with an energetic and dazzling three-minute routine that was easily the best and most sophisticated attempt by anyone in the age group.
They were guided all year by a veteran coaching staff. It was Veronica Allen’s first year at the helm, but she has assisted for two of the three years most of these girls were at a competitive level. Legendary Hollister coach Sherry Reynolds was on staff, who has taken many Hollister teams to nationals. She was joined by Kimberly Morgan, who is in her third year of cheer coaching, as well as Breanna Villegas, who cheered many years for both the Vikings and the Balers before becoming a coach this year. Rounding out the staff was second-year coach Anita Gutierrez. Baler cheerleaders Jaclyn Soto and Sharina Flippo also donated their time as student coaches to help the team succeed.
Conversely, the junior pee wees were a much less experienced squad, including several girls that were completely new to cheerleading, while almost half the squad had less than two years experience going into this season.
Head Coach Brandy Solano-Juarez had agreed to take on the team despite having no competitive cheer coaching experience, although she had one year of coaching at an instructional level. Her assistant coaching staff included newcomers Sofina Valdez and Angela Casarez, as well as second year coaches Melissa Nixon and Jessica Saldana.
The most experienced group were the teen coaches, as Linda Torres, Lauren Trimble and Jessica Rodriguez all boast several years of Pop Warner cheer experience. Trimble and Rodriguez currently cheer for the Balers, and all three girls graciously donated many hours of time to helping the younger cheerleaders succeed this year.
Another asset the team had going in was 11 holdovers from last year’s overachieving junior pee wee cheer team, which went all the way to Florida in 2008 despite having even less experience than this year’s team.
The junior pee wees mastered a sharp learning curve, improving in just three weeks from a fifth-place finish in the invitational tournament to a second-place finish and a regionals berth this weekend.
But big accomplishments at the junior pee wee level should come as no surprise to Hollister fans — this team has now advanced to regionals six years in a row and gone to nationals four years in a row, with four different head coaches.
Hollister can be equally proud of two other teams that competed this weekend. The instructional cheer team, made up of cheerleaders five- to eight-years-old, does not compete against other teams. But their team, coached by Inga Alonzo and Norma Segura, performed one of the fastest and most challenging routines for that age group. They have been invited to compete at the regional championships as a demonstration team for the second year in a row.
The midget cheerleaders also had a great performance, earning a very high score that has gotten many other teams to regionals or nationals. But on this day, it wasn’t enough as two other teams earned astronomically high scores to take the top spots.
The Pacific Northwest Regional Cheer Championships will take place on Nov. 27 at Leavey Center on the Santa Clara University campus.
