Fox High School’s Warriorettes dance team would not be denied a national title for a third year.
The Warriorettes won the Small Varsity Kick and Small Varsity Game Day at the National Dance Association (NDA) championships, held March 3-5 in Orlando, Fla. The team also captured ninth place in the Medium Varsity Pom competition.
The team has competed in the NDA national competition for the past seven years and finished second in the Kick competition the previous two years.
“Everything they told us at nationals the last two years and the critiques, we took those to heart,” said team co-captain Lindsey Greene, 18, of Imperial. “We decided this year we would focus on everything and apply as many of those judges’ critiques that we could.”
Co-captain Kaci Bretz, 17, of Arnold said the squad was confident it could capture a trophy.
“When we performed our first dance for kick, we were so confident in what we have done all year that it was all going to pay off and work out,” she said. “We put everything we had into it.”
Head coach Paige Winkler said this year’s championships featured 470 teams from 34 states competing in multiple dance categories.
“It is a pretty quick turnaround from the first time experiencing nationals to within seven years winning not one but two titles,” Winkler said.
Along with Greene and Bretz, the Warriorettes include seniors Anna Zouglas and Ella Stone; juniors Savannah Schindler, Sidney Sebold, Amaya Williams, Emilia McCann and Chelsea Flotho; sophomore Sophia Zouglas; and freshmen Ella Blase and Taylor Schwalbe.
Along with Winkler, the coaching staff consists of junior varsity coach Meghan Scott and assistant coaches Julia Sciaroni and Madi Patterson.
The Warriorettes junior varsity team captured second place in the Game Day competition and took third place in the pom competition.
Competing
Winkler said the small varsity competitions have 10 dance team members perform, and the medium varsity competitions feature all 12 members.
Teams must finish in the top 60 percent in the preliminary competition to advance to the championship competition.
The Warriorettes finished first among 10 teams in the Kick competition’s preliminary round before topping five other teams in the championship with a score of 94.6 out of 100.
Winkler said after two straight second-place finishes, the Warriorettes changed their Kick routine this year.
“They danced to ‘Eleanor Rigby’ by the Beatles,” she said. “This year we decided to take a different route to set ourselves apart from other teams.”
The Warriorettes finished first among 26 teams in the preliminaries for Game Day and topped 15 other squads for the title with 93.1833 points.
Winkler said a Game Day routine is a three-minute performance that is made up of parts of the team’s dance to the school’s fight song, halftime routine and kick routine.
In Pom, the Warriorettes advanced to the finals by finishing 12th out of 36 teams in the preliminary round, and the team came in ninth in the championship round.
“There are so many teams in pom because that is traditionally what dance teams do,” she said. “That top 10 is pretty hefty goal to have, and they came in ninth.”
Greene said winning two titles was the culmination of a lot of hard work.
“To finally be able to come home with not one national title but two national titles is insane.”