La Salle makes history with first competitive cheerleading national championship

La Salle’s competitive cheerleading team typically finds out within hours of its performances whether they were good enough to win.

This time the Royal Lions had to wait much longer.

Due to COVID-19 concerns, La Salle and other teams participated in this year’s High School Nationals remotely by submitting their best possible performances on video ahead of time.

With the remaining participants performing live at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista on Friday — 41 days after they sent their submission — La Salle’s cheerleaders gathered at their school’s gym to see how they stacked up against the nation’s best.

Three months after winning their second consecutive state title, the Royal Lions made history as the first team ever from South Florida to win a national championship.

“It was such a surreal moment because we worked so hard this season especially with COVID and so many challenges,” said La Salle senior captain Sofia Penas. “We were huddled up together, staring at the jumbotron in our gym, holding hands, all excited. When they announced second place and they still hadn’t called our name, we started screaming. Some of the girls threw themselves on the floor. It was crazy.”

The judges scored La Salle’s performance as good enough to win the championship of the Super Varsity Non-Tumbling division. In January, La Salle won the Class 1A state title in the Extra Large Non-Tumbling division at a live performance in Lakeland.

“Our goal wasn’t even to win [nationals],” said La Salle coach Coral Buxeda, who started the school’s program four years ago and competed in the FHSAA series for the first time in 2019. “We wanted to at least make it to the finals since we’re still only in our third year as a program. We saw the rankings and we were in first, we were like ‘What?!’”

The Royal Lions had less than two weeks to prepare to submit their entry in the national championships this past March due to a delay in being able to all practice together after one of their cheerleaders contracted COVID-19.

“We got back from the state meet and had to quarantine for five days,” Buxeda said. “On that Monday we were about to get cleared, someone tested positive. So we had to go through another round of tests which kept us away for almost a month. The first week of March was when we finally had everybody so we had no time to waste.”

Competing with 26 cheerleaders — two fewer than at the state meet — including nine seniors who have been with the program since its inception, La Salle recorded its performance on March 19th on Senior Night and hoped it would be enough.

Buxeda, a cheerleader herself at Reagan High who previously coached at Doral Academy, had a good feeling about the routine’s potential.

“The middle portion goes for about a minute and a half and all we do is cheer,” Buxeda said. “It has a catchy slogan to it, ‘Crowns Up’ since we’re the Royal Lions. In the very short amount of time we had we couldn’t do all the stuff we wanted to but that was my favorite part.”

Penas said performing remotely and not in front of a packed arena was less challenging mentally, but trying to put together the best routine with more than one attempt on the same day was more physically challenging.

It was also a challenge for La Salle during the pandemic even in the fall to have enough practice time for the entire team together due to safety restrictions at the time.

“We had to practice separately before the fall season,” Buxeda said. “I had kids who couldn’t work together that I needed to practice together. Two weeks before our first competition we finally were able to all come together.”

Getting everyone back in performing shape was a challenge after the members of the team had scattered following state and spring break on the horizon.

But Penas said she and her teammates committed to put in the effort to secure one more memorable triumph.

“We were super confident in our routine,” Penas said. “And it was awesome how it all came together.”