By Kiley Brown
The varsity Cougarettes traveled to Irvine, California for their first competition of the season, NDA (National Dance Alliance) SoCal on Dec. 6-7. Their game day and jazz routines placed first, and pom placed second.
“Beating our rivals Orange Lutheran for pom and Ayala for jazz felt amazing,” senior Carli Meinert, captain said. “We placed the highest we ever have for pom. All the hard work we put in was worth it. This was also a great opportunity to bond with our team.”
To prepare for the competition, the Cougarettes had multiple practices weekly since September. The night before the competition, the team gathered together to mentally run through how the next day will go, go through the dances and make sure everyone eats and sleeps well.
“All of the girls felt strong and confident to show the judges and our competitors how hard we worked for this,” senior Amy Chairuangdej said. “For me, I went into the competition confident and ready. We set the bar high for this season with the placing we got, and I cannot wait to see how far my team and I will go by the time we head to nationals.”
The Cougarettes next competition is the DTU Vegas Classic on Saturday Jan. 18 at Basic High School.
“This competition gave us a lot of hope and more motivation for the future,” junior Sophia Plote said. “I had a lot of fun this weekend, and I cannot wait for our future competitions.”
