Dance and Spirit teams place at the Western Nationals in Anaheim
The speakers blared "Do you really want it?" "Yeah!" shouted the Marquesas. Dressed in shiny red unitards, the Marquesas began their kick routine to Ricky Martin’s "Cup of Life".
On March 27 and 28, the Dance and Spirit teams competed in the USA National Championships in Anaheim, Calif. Dance placed first in the kick routine and fifth in the medium routine, one place away from earning a trophy. Cheer placed fourth and Song placed first for its novice division and fifth for its intermediate division.
"We had a lot of fun and energy in [medium]," senior YeeAnn Chen said. "There were some surprising moments, like for our medium we got higher than we though we would. We beat Lynbrook."
As expected, the Marquesas and the Lynbrook Valkyries have a friendly rivalry. Usually the Valkyries score higher than the Marquesas in medium, but this time it was reversed. However, the kick routine, as the Marquesas’ forte, came with more pressure.
"We all wanted [to win] so badly," senior Charlene Chen said. "We had the most pressure because we had a better chance to win [for kick]."
Due to a change in regulations last year, Cheer moved up to the from novice to the intermediate tier. The skills required to make the top three at nationals are at a much higher caliber in the intermediate tier, which involves more stunts and tumbling. Despite the raised expectations, Cheer still placed fourth, scoring only 0.8 points away from the first place score and one place away from winning a trophy.
"We were really iffy [if] we made finals during prelims," Cheer member junior Niki Mahudin said. "When they announced that we had got into finals, we were pretty emotional. We were really happy that we had made it that far."
Due to another change in regulations, the Song team was split into Intermediate and Novice, and many of the other more advanced schools moved down into Intermediate. The Song team placed fourth in the intermediate division and first in the novice division. Because some schools had been in the advanced division, Song had prepared for some tough competition.
"Even though we still worked hard, we knew [Nationals] would be really difficult," Song captain senior Megumi Sugimoto said. "We were the only team to move up a division and everyone else moved down."
In the end, intermediate Song scored the third highest score, but a tie in the second place bumped the MVHS team down to fourth.
"It was really painful because it was so close," Sugimoto said.
In retrospect, the team decided that they had done really well considering the vast improvement in their performance, and considered placing fourth a triumph.
The Dance and Spirit teams claimed their success in a dramatic climax at Nationals. All three teams got a cup of life, placing higher and going farther than they had ever gone before.
