Final destination: West High dance team at nationals
After a season of hard work leading up to their biggest competition, the dance team competed at UDA nationals, and WSS recaps their experience.
February 8, 2023
Not many west high sports teams get to travel across state lines for competition, however, after qualifying for another year this past summer the West High Dance Team spent five days at Disney World competing at UDA nationals. Nationals is comprised of three rounds that a team must advance their routine(s) through to reach the end goal of the final round which takes place in front of the coveted castle.
The team competed in both small varsity pom and jazz, advancing to the semi-finals in jazz. The team missed jazz finals by .2 of a point, ultimately placing 20th.
While the team did fall short of qualifying for finals there was a notable improvement this year from the last. In each competition of their season, they not only placed better but felt that the routines and team dynamic were a level up from previous years.
“Watching videos of our dance this year compared to last year it’s almost crazy that we’re the same team, [minus the leaving of seniors and addition of new freshman] we were so much better this year. And since we improved so much as a team technically, we could make our dance more competitive and difficult. Our team atmosphere of wanting to get better and never settle helped us motivate each other to get to the point where when we came off the nationals floor, we were just so proud of our work and each other,” said Emma Genkinger ’23.
With their season now at a close, the team does not have any competitions left, but do have a kids clinic on February 25th for grades K-8. Tryouts for next year are set to take place in the spring, the team’s Instagram @icwesthighdanceteam will have more updates closer to spring break.
