Competitive squad takes first at UCA regional event, needs
sponsors to make trip
GILROY – Once their nerves were settled, the adrenaline took over for the 17-member Gilroy High competitive spiritleader squad – which took home first prize in the Nov. 15 Universal Cheerleading Association (UCA) regional event at Sacramento State.
Winning the small co-ed varsity division also qualified the Mustang spirits for the National Competition in February at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. In only their first competition, Gilroy scored 215 points for the first-place trophy and the bid to nationals.
“Up to the day of competition, I was so nervous. But once it came down to it, we hit everything. We got ourselves all pumped up and ended up taking first in our division,” senior captain Kayla Johnson said. “We made little mistakes here and there, but when it came to the end, I knew we had done the best we could.”
Johnson headed up the competitive squad along with assistant coach Liz Hardy – who helped the team work on its routine twice a week dating back to the summer. All members of the team volunteered to dedicate themselves for competition.
“They’ve been practicing twice a week for two hours and that’s on top of all their school responsibilities and on top of practice for game coverage,” said six-year head coach Jeannie Baumgartner of her group. “I was surprised that we got first place in our division. We really wanted a bid to nationals. It just depends… The fact that we got both (first and a bid) is really spectacular.”
The garlic unit was made of seniors, juniors and sophomores off both the varsity and junior varsity cheer and song squads. The roster included senior Valerie Avila, junior Jeena Sable, junior Bradley Miller, senior Marliz Copado, junior Tiffiny Dame, junior Angelique Geiger, and senior Nichole Groppe. Also coming off the varsity teams were Johnson, junior Melissa Hyer, senior Brittney O’Neal, junior Stephanie Orth, junior Meghan Signorotti, and senior Ashley Smith.
The junior varsity participants were junior Trillian Hamilton and sophomores Erin Kinkel, Lauren Stewart, and Jessica Stone.
The competitive crew, which can be seen at all home basketball games, used a two-minute routine that was choreographed by former Gilroy High spiritleader Lynn Baggese – who went on to cheer in college and then work at many cheer camps as well as with several competitive teams.
“It’s just non-stop. They’re just going from one thing to another. It’s exhausting. It takes a lot of conditioning and practice to hit everything, hit all the stunts and get the counts together,” Baumgartner said. “This is first year we had a specific competitive team. I’ve taken past squads like the whole varsity or whole JV team would compete. That was hard because it’s a lot of pressure and a lot of time.”
It was the first UCA event that a Gilroy High team has competed in – but the squad only needed one showing to earn a bid to nationals. There were about 100 competing schools broken up in various divisions.
“When heard we qualified for nationals, everyone started jumping up and down, hugging each other, and then we grabbed the trophy,” Johnson said. “That was definitely a goal. If we didn’t make it the first time, we would keep trying.”
Johnson has gone on several special spirit trips to Disneyland her freshman year, to the Pro Bowl last season, and is now off to Disneyworld in February.
This year’s competitive squad plans on competing again in December or January to gain more experience before the nationals. The team is now fundraising for its trip to Florida. Any local businesses or individuals wanting to help sponsor the spiritleaders’ trip can do so by contacting Jeannie Baumgartner at 847-2424 xt. 7120.
“We need support from community to make this happen,” said Baumgartner, who took a junior varsity unit to the Nationals three years ago at the Anaheim Convention Center. “We have gone to nationals before, but it hasn’t been a real goal until this year because we always have done the Pro Bowl trip instead. We only make one big trip per year.”
The competitive squad wore special uniforms for the event – which were purchased by the booster club. The team now hopes to take their routine to Florida.
“It was perfect. I felt that it went really well,” said Miller, the only male spiritleaders on the squad. “I’m kinda excited about competing against a new division of squads. I feel we’ll do really well.”
The show cheer differs from the game routine used by the varsity and junior varsity squads. The two-minute routine was graded on cheer, dance, stunts and performance cheer.
“It’s a very difficult category because you have to show a lot of skill. It’s not just dance or just performance cheer, it’s all of it together,” Baumgartner said. “I was pretty confident that they’d get a bid to nationals.”
