St. Michael’s Pony Express reclaims title
Team, which recently captured a national title, updated military precision drill to win its 26th New Mexico crown
ALBUQUERQUE — Knock the process all you want, but there’s a lot to be said about the way the winners are revealed at the annual State Spirit Championships in The Pit.
With most of the 14,000 seats in the arena’s lower bowl occupied on Saturday evening, the tension had been mounting all day as the competition wound down in the dance and cheer teams events. Without much wiggle room to exorcise the stress, teams from around the state held their collective breath as the top three teams were announced from bottom to top over the public address system.
About 20 rows up was the Class 6A champion Valley drill team, dressed in its Wonder Woman knock-offs and their backs turned to the floor in some sort of time-honored tradition shared by a few teams. Way up top was Lovington, the 5A cheerleading champ that made every head in the arena crane upward when its collective scream told everyone exactly where the Wildcats were hiding.
Then came a measured, if not professional response when the 1A-4A drill team results were made public. In the dark upper corner of Section N was the St. Michael’s Pony Express, the juggernaut program with no equal in spirit competitions.
When their name was called, it marked the 26th state title in school history.
“It’s been an interesting ride,” said head coach Lydia Sanchez, the matriarch of one of the most respected and revered athletic teams the state has ever produced.
The Pony Express just recently won a national title at a competition in Florida, yet returned to New Mexico knowing it wasn’t necessarily the favorite this weekend since Hope Christian was the defending state champion and had posted a solid performance just 20 minutes before the Express took the floor for its final routine Saturday morning.
But Sanchez had a secret weapon. The team used a precise military-style routine to win the national championship and, with a few tweaks here and there, did the same thing after its pom rendition in Round 1 the day before.
Bottom line, Saturday’s dance was flawless. It was more than enough to leave Hope in second and give the Pony Express a chance to meander through The Pit steps down
to the floor to collect its latest piece of hardware.
One of the 10 girls out there was sophomore Chloe Lieberman. Saturday was her first day back with the team after sitting out 10 days while taking part in the NMAA’s mandatory concussion protocol. She was even held out of practices, watching her teammates on video and told to work out on her own by Sanchez.
“It was really hard because I wasn’t sure if I was going to participate out here, but I didn’t feel any pressure coming back for this,” Lieberman said. “I’ve done it so many times and everyone was so good about making sure I had the changes down, so it wasn’t a big deal.”
“We had to FaceTime her a couple of times so she could see what was going on but, no, we weren’t worried at all,” Sanchez said.
The mood wasn’t all great in St. Michael’s camp. Just moments after the Pony Express returned to Section N with with its trophy, the school’s cheer squad was awarded second place behind West Las Vegas in the 4A co-ed competition.
The Dons erupted off the bottom two rows of The Pit’s bleacher seats when their name was called — much the same reaction Taos had when it won the 4A cheer title.
The Tigers were seated immediately to the right of West Las Vegas when their name was called.
That exact moment sparked a mad rush to the middle of the floor for the trophy presentation in which NMAA executive director Sally Marquez was nearly tackled as she handed the hardware over.
“Even the person holding our banner just dropped it and moved away when she saw us running out there,” said Tigers senior cocaptain Heaven Valdez.
Forced to sit around for a good part of the day after their final routine produced a minor fall that could have proved costly, the Tigers left The Pit altogether to help ease the tension.
“There’s nothing you can do except sit around and wait, so I thought us getting out of here for a while was just what we needed,” said Taos head coach Lisa Valerio.
Northern teams dominated the smallschool cheer competitions as Questa won its second straight championship in 1A-2A while Pecos walked off with the 3A title for the second time in a row. The blue trophy was the fifth in a row for Taos; the first of them as a co-ed team and the last four as a girls-only squad.
Capital put together a solid routine in Saturday’s final round of the cheer competition, but the Lady Jaguars finished ninth.
Santa Fe High was also ninth in the 6A category, well behind champion Eldorado, runner-up La Cueva and third-place Rio Rancho.
Taos was fourth and West Las Vegas was fifth behind the Pony Express in 1A-4A dance. Robertson received eighth. In 5A, Capital was eighth behind the top-three of Roswell, St. Pius and Gallup.