Lady Horsemen aim to take state trophy back home again
Lydia Sanchez logged more miles than she has in more than a decade.
The reward for all of that work as the head cheer and dance coach at St. Michael’s could come Saturday night in The Pit in Albuquerque for the State Spirit Championships.
Sanchez already made a name for herself in the spirit competition lore, as she has guided the Pony Express dance squad to 26 state titles during her 31-year tenure. Ask any dancer on the team, and they know the “St. Mike’s Way” by chapter and verse. But Sanchez knows it best. “They all know that, before you walk into the gym in the morning, you have to know you’re going in to work,” Sanchez said. “There will be no slacking. We are here for a reason, so either accept the reason and get ready to go or head for the hills. Go home.”
This year, the St. Michael’s co-ed cheer squad got a taste of the “St. Mike’s Way,” but it has been a productive process as it got to know Sanchez and vice versa. The team is trying to get back on the podium after finishing fourth last year and bringing home a third-place trophy in 2016.
“This year, I feel like it has been one of our best years,” Lady Horsemen sophomore Annie Orr said. “Heading into state, we all feel very confident. There has been blood, sweat and tears, of course, but that’s how you make champions.”
It’s just another extension of Sanchez’s influence over the program, but she wasn’t hesitant to bring in some help for her double-duty. She had not coached the cheer team since the mid-2000s, but she reached out to Crista Palermo, former St. Michael’s cheerleader who also competed for UNM, and Santa Fe High graduate Mikayla Trujillo, who was a part of the Demonettes’ Class 6A state title in 2015. Sanchez also padded her coaching staff on the dance side to the point that she had six coaches helping her this season.
Sanchez admitted that she recognized she was a little rusty coaching cheer, and relied on finding good assistants to help her ease the load of coaching two teams.
“It’s hard to learn when you’ve been on the dance side for 30 years,” Sanchez said. “I love the change, it’s been good. I had a lot to learn and I learned fast.”
One thing Sanchez recognized was the amount of time the cheer team spends preparing for and attending school events. It was more than just travelling to Las Vegas, N.M., Taos or Pojoaque to support whichever athletic team was competing.
“[The dance team] helps cheerleaders with spirit, but we’re not as involved,” Sanchez said. “We get to perform and entertain, and then we’re like, ‘On to the next dance. Let’s go!’ Cheer, they’re regularly hanging signs somewhere, or they’re making a big banner for the football team to run through [in the pregame warmups]. They’ve even gone to cross-country meets to support a couple of our runners.”
Orr, though, said Sanchez’s dance background has come in handy on the cheer side.
“It actually helps us because in cheer, there is a dance portion to it,” Orr said. “But she made sure that we had the best help that we could for the cheer portion of it because she could only help us to a certain point.”
All the while, Sanchez continued to guide the decorated
Pony Express to more hardware, this time on a national scale. The Pony Express won the varsity team military title at the Dance Team Union National Championships in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 18, beating Iowa’s South Hamilton for the crown. It’s yet another honor for a program that has a multitude of state championships and national honors throughout Sanchez’s tenure.
But the team admits that its ultimate goal comes this weekend in The Pit.
“That is what we ultimately work for,” senior captain Adrianna Baca said. “We go to nationals, and we really just want to do our personal best. Those teams are on a whole other scale and we go to nationals to win, but at state, there are a little more expectations to do even better. To hold a state title, that so close to the girls’ hearts, and that is something we want to keep the legacy going.”
And it’s the legacy that keeps the Pony Express focused throughout the year. Even though it lost last year’s dance title to Albuquerque Hope Christian by a scant 180.76-177.76 score, the team is not dwelling on it.
“Each new year, we start with a clean slate,” Baca said. “So, we focus on the talent we have now, and what we can do to make this year great.”
And greatness never looks back. It merely forges ahead. Not even the mileage matters when it comes to state.