Dance teams rocks at State

The+dance+team+strikes+their+final+pose.

Ann Henning

The dance team strikes their final pose.

Madalynn Lewis, Sports Beat Leader

On Saturday, December 8, Fossil Ridge High School’s dance team competed at their state competition and placed 15 out of the 21 teams competing. This was an incredible result for the Sabercats, as the Poms division is highly competitive and several advanced teams have been competing in the division for several years. The girls scored a clean 74.37 points with zero deductions and were also the best run of the dance the Poms have ever done.

After the girls finished their performance, the head coach Billie Sprague said “I honestly was not thinking about the scores or rank at all. Before we got the scores, Coach Sarah and I talked about how we weren’t going to worry about what they got – we were already so proud of the way they performed.”

I honestly was not thinking about the scores or rank at all. We were already so proud of they way they performed.

— Billie Sprague

This season they have had to overcome substantial amounts of adversity in order to make sure that their routines are as amazing as they are. At the beginning of the autumn, Lauren Rael, the head coach, resigned to focus her efforts on the CSU Golden Poms. As a result, Billie Sprague stepped up and filled the head coach position even though she was originally an assistant coach. There have also been lots of injuries this season, so keeping everyone healthy for the state competition has been extremely difficult.

As the team began preparing for state, the coaches decided that the team effort would be best spent performing their routines at games instead of attending lots of competitions. The team attended League for their first competition of the season and it went spectacularly as a result, and the Sabercats were only one point behind the highest scoring team.

Ann Henning
Immediately after finishing their routine, the team runs off the floor to hug Coach Billie.

The dancers and coaches made several changes to the routine after receiving feedback from the judges at their league competitions. The dancers feel confident in their routine and in themselves and earned an incredibly high score compared to past years. Sprague explained, “They did everything we asked of them and we were so happy with that!”

The dance team has worked so hard this season and overcome so much; congratulations Sabercats!