The Hollister Vikings cheerleaders continue to be a dominant
force in Peninsula Pop Warner, as they were one of only four
organizations to advance every single one of their teams to
regionals after Saturday’s league championship competition.
SANTA CLARA
The Hollister Vikings cheerleaders continue to be a dominant force in Peninsula Pop Warner, as they were one of only four organizations to advance every single one of their teams to regionals after Saturday’s league championship competition.
The top three teams in each competitive category advance to the Pacific Northwest Regional competition the day after Thanksgiving. Hollister took one championship, along with one second- and one third-place trophy.
The league champions were Hollister’s veteran junior midget team, averaging five years of cheer experience for each of their 20 squad members and only one first-year cheerleader. Their head coach, Pepper Soto, has been coaching cheer since long before most of these teenage girls were born.
Soto’s stated goal is to bring home Hollister’s first national championship trophy this year, and few who witnessed their dazzling performance at Leavey Center in Santa Clara on Saturday would doubt that this team has what it takes to achieve that lofty goal.
The junior midgets’ score was far and away the highest of any team performing at the competition in any division, as it was at the invitational competition three weeks earlier.
The junior pee wees made a quantum leap, taking second in the highly competitive junior pee wee novice division, where they beat out 12 of 13 teams. They had failed to place three weeks before at the invitational, but according to head coach Brandy Solano-Juarez, a lot of that was by design.
“We had a lot of new girls cheering for us this year,” Solano-Juarez said. “When I coach a team, my goal is to get them to nationals, and that was what my assistant coaches and I built our whole strategy around. Our goal was not to have them ready by the early competitions, but to have them ready for the championships. We could have thrown together a good routine to win last month, but that’s not the kind of routine that wins nationals. With so many new girls on the team, we wanted to go slow, teach them the basics, and get them ready to perform a routine that they can actually win at nationals with.”
Indeed, eight of the junior pee wee girls (about half the team) have no previous cheer experience, and so Solano-Juarez patiently waited until Saturday to see her squad perform the routine she and her coaches had envisioned.
The strategy paid off big time as the junior pee wees jumped from eighth place at invitationals to second place in the one competition that really counts towards advancement.
The junior pee wee Vikings are now getting set for a grueling four weeks of practice to perfect their routine if they are going to take it all the way to Florida. The squad will face 12 different competitors at regionals, which is the largest category. All of them will be vying for a top-two national qualifying spot in the regional competition. But with the experience and wisdom of this coaching staff, and the enthusiasm of these young cheerleaders, and seeing what they accomplished at the league level, it would be hard to rule this team out.
Hollister’s pee wee cheerleaders also faced stiff competition from eight other squads as they sought to improve on a fourth-place finish three weeks ago. The pee wees improved enough to continue their season, taking home the third-place trophy, and the final spot that advances to the regional championship.
This is another team that has a great deal of experience on its roster. Just like the junior midgets, they only had one new cheerleader this year, but their average experience is about four years.
They also have an enthusiastic first-year head coach in Missy Nixon. The team had a rousing and fast competition and performed some difficult stunts, but needs to perfect its routine to beat out their six regional competitors and earn a national berth.
Hollister’s two instructional teams, the mighty mites and tiny mites, closed out their season on Saturday with encore performances of their spectacular routines that earned rave reviews at the Shoreline competition three weeks ago.
The Pacific Northwest Regional Championship competition, a contest of the best teams in Northern California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, will take place at the University of Santa Clara on Nov. 26, the day after Thanksgiving.
The cheerleaders are raising money for their trips to Nationals at Walt Disney World by selling raffle tickets the next few days, with some big prizes set to be given away. Hollister shoppers will find them frequently in front of the major stores in town.
Businesses that would like to donate to the effort are encouraged to call (831) 726-1747.
