Locked In: How East’s Varsity Dance did at their National competition

The Varsity Lancer Dancers placed seventh in jazz and 13th in hip hop — one place away from making it into the finals — at Nationals after flying to Orlando, Florida March 3-8. 

After arriving separately Thursday, every girl regrouped at their last practice before the competition that day at 5 p.m. Junior Kate Cronenwett describes these rehearsals leading up the competition as some of their most strenuous yet.

“Everyone locked in,” Cronenwett said. “The thing is that our practices we had before the competition were our most intense and hard working practices that I think we’ve had all year.”

The competition at Nationals was the toughest of their season, according to Cronenwett. Due to not having an in-personal Nationals last year because of COVID, each team came even more determined. 

“I think a lot of us were nervous, because especially with this year’s Nationals, there were a lot more schools that went,” Cronenwett said. “Everyone’s ‘on’ year was this year. We knew that we had to work super hard to achieve our goals.”

The competition was so difficult that the team didn’t place as well as they usually do. While they were expecting top five in jazz, they came seventh. And while they were expecting to compete in the hip hop finals, they were .02 points off of coming in the cutoff of 12th place, making 13th place.

“For us, we were hoping for the top five in jazz, so that was a little bit upsetting,” Cronenwett said. “But we still made it into finals and figured that we had another chance. Hip hop was the most upsetting. Even though we worked really hard, we didn’t get to have another chance in the finals. We were so close to getting that second chance, but we didn’t. And I don’t even know if it was our best run.”

According to Cronenwett, all of the top teams were in the region of one point, proving how prepared each of the competing teams were.

“There were some really good schools there,” Cronenwett said. “It was obvious that everyone had put in so much work, and it was really about what the judges liked. I actually really enjoyed watching the other dances.”