Varsity dance competes at Grant, Central

Dance+team+performs+at+Sectionals.

Jesse Hertzke

Dance team performs at Sectionals.

The varsity dance team went into a full weekend starting on January 11 placing fourth at Grant during the NLCC conference competition and completing their weekend on January 13 ,placing fifth at the Central competition.

Both of these competitions were a way for the team to prepare themselves for the upcoming sectionals on January 18 in hopes of getting to State this year.

“This weekend was really busy for us with two competitions, so we were all pretty tired, but we still pushed through. [On Sunday] we placed fifth, which was in the middle. To get to State, we are working really hard this week and we’re practicing even more than usual. We have also been really analyzing our videos from performances to see what we need to focus on,” said junior Olivia Armanetti.

Throughout the week, the team did many different things to prepare themselves for the long weekend they had ahead of them.

“To prepare for the competitions, we made sure our routine was precise, clean, energetic, and fun. As a team, we watched our past performances in order to point out which portions of the routine we have to focus on. In order to motivate the team, we did color themed practices all week,” said senior captain Nikki Boxer

There were a bountiful amount of feelings through the weekend, but the team had specific areas they were focusing on to help themselves overall.

“We were more focused on our scores rather than placement, and we scored really well this weekend, so we were all really happy about that,” Armanetti said.

Overall, the team worked hard throughout the week to compete at conference and the Central competition, and they used these competitions to help prepare themselves for upcoming Sectionals on January 19.

“We used these competitions to prepare ourselves for sectionals by pretending like they were Sectionals. By doing this, we walked away from those competitions knowing exactly where we stand, and what we need to work on,” Boxer said.