U. Dance heads to Florida

After three months of preparation, the members of U.Dance are ready to compete in the National Cheerleaders Association/National Dance Alliance Collegiate Cheer and Dance Championship April 7-10 in Daytona Beach, Fla. The championship is the largest college cheer and dance competition in the world with more than 5,000 student athletes competing. The teams are grouped into 10 dance divisions and 16 cheer divisions.

“Our goal is to place high this year,” senior captain Angie Ahrenholtz said. “We did well last year, but now we know the competition and we’ve worked hard, so I think we can blend in a little better and have a chance at beating out some of our competition.”

Ahrenholtz said U. Dance’s ultimate goal would be to get into finals and place in the top 10, after placing 13th out of 16 teams at last year’s event.

To meet this year’s goal, the team started working on the choreography for its dance in December after an initial setback with the choreographer.

“We were going to hire a choreographer to design the choreography for us,” Ahrenholtz said. “She ended up bailing on us at the last minute, so we came together as a team and did the choreography ourselves.”

Since then, the team has worked on conditioning the dance, gaining flexibility and coming together as a team, Ahrenholtz said.

“Because of what ended up happening with the choreographer, I think it strengthened us as a team,” Ahrenholtz said. “Everything in the dance, came from members within the team.”

The team’s nationals’ dance contains three different styles of dance — pom, jazz and hip-hop — to show the judges everything the team can do, Ahrenholtz said.

“After going to Daytona last year, we learned what we needed to do,” Ahrenholtz said. “We incorporated that into our dance, so the judges can see all sides of our talent.”

Senior captain Briannea Eslick said U. Dance decided to go back to Daytona this year because of the level of competition this meet provides.

“We had fun last year seeing all of the teams and we wanted to go somewhere with a lot of competition,” Eslick said. “In past years we had gone to meets with very few teams, and Daytona has at least 12 teams in each division.”

Sophomore Bekah Rinehart said the level of competition this year is going to be tougher than last year.

“Since we’ve moved to Division I, the level of competition has become more difficult, and there are teams we’ve never seen before,” Rinehart said. “We’re really excited to watch Brigham Young University. They have a really intense focus on their dance team and they’re just a lot of fun to watch.”

The schedule for the meet includes the first round of dancing Thursday morning, which will determine whether the team makes it to finals, Ahrenholtz said. If the team doesn’t make it to finals, they will compete again Thursday afternoon in the Challenge Cup.

“Either way we’ll dance twice, but I would really like to see us dancing both Thursday and Friday in finals,” Ahrenholtz said.

As part of U. Dance’s fundraising efforts to pay their way to nationals, they held their U. Danceapalooza April 2, which Ahrenholtz said was a success.

“I appreciate everyone coming out for our fundraiser and supporting us,” Ahrenholtz said. “It means so much to all of us for helping send us to nationals.”

Eslick said fundraising for nationals is important because it means the women don’t have to pay as much out of pocket.

“The majority of our fundraising has gone to helping us pay our way there,” Eslick said. “The competition is expensive to enter, but on top of that, we decided we wanted more professional uniforms this year. After last year, we knew what we needed to look like if wanted a chance at finals.”

Eslick said that no matter what happens at the meet, she hopes everyone has fun and that U. Dance’s trip to Daytona is worth it.

“I think we have a chance to make it to finals,” Eslick said. “Our friends and former dancers have told us that we look better than before. At the end of the weekend, I hope we’ve had a memorable experience.”

Rinehart said that no matter what happens in Daytona Beach, she said she wants the team to give everything they have.

“I’m excited for us to get the experience of another national tournament,” Rinehart said. “I want us to leave nothing on the dance floor.”

Reach reporter Kayla Prasek at [email protected].