Valencia cheer came back victorious after their first competition season in almost 20 years, placing first in multiple championships in their division.
This year was Valencia’s first year back as a traditional competitive cheer team since 2005.
Having never competed in CIF Southern Section Championships throughout the history of the school, the varsity team found success in the following competitions: placing first in its division at CIF on Jan. 20, placing first at the JAMZ State Championships on Feb. 10 and placing first at the USA Spirit National Championships out of 37 teams on Feb. 16 and 17, as well as winning the group stunt division out of 41 teams.
Coaches Haley Santamaria and Morgan Silverman led the Valencia girls to victory. The team of 15 has been practicing since April of last year.
“This year is actually our first year that we competed in a traditional, competitive routine — this was our inaugural season,” Santamaria said. “We competed in CIF for the first time, which was really cool, and we came out with a win out of 10 teams. We won JAMZ, which is a state championship, and then we competed at nationals.”
Valencia brought back the competition team last year, but this year was their first year competing in a different division, with a different, traditional routine to bring a win from CIF.
“We were still new to competing. We competed last year for the first time, but it was a totally different division,” Santamaria said. “This year, these kids just wanted it. They had the drive for it. They had the commitment for it. They worked hard. We would practice three times a week sometimes on the weekends. They just wanted to be here and they wanted to win.”
Santamaria credits the work of not only the students, but also the collaboration with Silverman, proving that a win is truly a team effort.
“It’s myself and Morgan, she’s our other coach, and we were just really excited to bring this team together this year,” Santamaria said. “It’s been an awesome season.”
Varsity competition cheer captions seniors Ella Stroh and Brooke Davis, 17, began their cheer career through All Star Cheer in elementary school, and have shown their dedication to the sport for many years.
The team practiced almost every day, with early-morning and late-night places, and performed sideline cheering during school events and games. Stroh recognized that consistent practice, along with guidance from the coaches, showed in their victories as the season concluded.
“We’ve made a lot of progress since the beginning of the year. I’m super proud of how we’ve really come together as a team and had a really good bond,” Stroh said. “The coaches have helped us with all the improvements since the beginning. Our team is super close with each other and we’re able to have fun while also practicing and working on skills and being determined.”
Davis and Stroh, along with their teammates, put in countless hours in pursuit of great results.
“I would definitely say that the hardest part of the process is putting in all of the hours. Sometimes it gets really tiring being at practice for multiple hours at a time, but it definitely all paid off when we were winning CIF and nationals,” Davis said.
Davis reflected on the school pride and celebration from other students and teachers.
“Coming back from winning JAMZ, and going into my English class, my teacher pulled me aside to say congratulations,” Davis said. “It’s really cool to see how many people notice and recognize our hard work.”
“For both of us, this is like the last hurrah because we have been cheering for so long. So it was a super good way to kind of end our cheerleading careers,” Stroh said. “As captains leading our team, being able to work as a team to get there was super cool.”
“I definitely agree — a lot of it has to do with motivation, like motivating the team to always push themselves and do their best,” Davis said. “It’s a super cool experience to kind of uplift everyone and motivate everyone to keep pushing. Even if we weren’t starting out so great, we ended with a national title.”
