Recently, the dance team placed ninth in nationals, but that is not their only accomplishment this season. On Feb. 22, the Silver Stars won first at the Missouri Dance Team Association (MDTA) State Championships in Division 4A, performing in Pom and Precision Jazz. They won second in Pom and Precision Jazz, but overall they placed first in their division. Divisions are ranked from smallest school enrollment to largest, and then divided into 6 equal divisions.
A lot of preparation goes into an achievement like winning state, but according to coach Erin Taylor, it is not entirely physical.
“We don’t always get to practice, so we did all of the before prep and we talked about the reasons that we were thankful for the team and what we wanted our last performances and our last day performing as a team to feel like,” Taylor said.
The mental preparation does play a big role in getting the girls ready because it allows them to them get out any nerves that they may have, senior Abbigail Wilkinson said.
“We talk about what we’re feeling before we go on, and [talk about] the anxiety, all the anticipation and the nervousness and that helps. It’s a debrief that helps the mental aspect,” Wilkinson said.
Taylor got the chance to watch a few of the other teams perform their routine, but she had no idea how they amounted to our team, especially from the judges’ perspective.
“Watching them is hard to describe because you’re like, oh, I’m not sure if we’re better than that or not. I think we’re better than that, but does somebody else think they are? I tend to anticipate that we’ll be lower than we are, so I was hoping for the best,” Taylor said.
Going into the stadium and getting ready to perform, there were a lot of emotions, but not just excitement and nervousness, Wilkinson said, especially because in 2021, the Silver Stars won state at the same stadium.
“As a senior, I felt a lot of nostalgia. Last time we were at Family Arena we had won state, and it was just kind of like, wow, here I am again, this is weird, and then fast forward to the end of the night we won state again, and it was just a lot of deja vu,” Wilkinson said.
During the performance, Taylor said that she was feeling good about how they were doing, and was confident that they would do well.
“As the dance was going on, I was like, wow, this is going really well. Not wanting to jinx it, but knowing that we were putting our best performances on the floor,” Taylor said.
After it was all said and done, the girls felt really good about their performance, especially in Pom, where it is required that they use pom poms at least 80% of the routine.
“We felt really good, especially after pom. We did pom and there was just like an uplift. It was just another level,” Wilkinson said.
According to senior Amelia Lechner, not only did they feel good about poms, they also felt really good about their second category, Precision Jazz, which focused on their precise movements.
“Coming off of both the dances we felt really, really good about them, and we were all really happy about it and proud,” Lechner said.
To announce the results of the competition, they announce the top five teams in no particular order, who then stand up, and then they tell teams to sit, beginning from fifth place.
“I started crying immediately once we stood because we had achieved our goal of standing and that was kind of an unreal feeling,” Taylor said.
Not only did the girls get to stand for top five, they got to continue standing to the very end, creating a memorable experience for the entire group.
“I [had a] flashback to freshman year when we were standing then, and we were holding hands with our heads ducked down listening as they called the names to sit from five, to four, to three, to two, then the one. It was incredible. I was crying, there were a lot of tears,” Wilkinson said.
