By Crystal Donaldson

NORMAL – Normal West High School’s dance team members are living on cloud nine. They were awarded a trophy at the National Dance Team Championships in Competitive Dance in Orlando, Florida.

The dance team’s hip hop routine placed 18th in the national finals March 3.

The routine also gained the girls bragging rights as first place champs in January’s high school sectionals.

Coach Shelly Weakly said she’s proud of the work each girl put into the routine.

“It was a very hard hitting, fierce type of hip hop,” Weakly said. “(There’s) a lot of tricks in it. It took a lot of strength from all of the individuals. The mix of music was very much kind of reinforcing that theme as well,” she added.

Junior Team Leader Rylie Murphy said each girl agreed their favorite part of the trip was the moment they heard the school’s name announced as finalist.

“Every style of dance is pinned against each other,” Murphy said. “So we competed against lyrical and jazz and other hip hops and kick. It was a gratifying feeling to know that our hip hop dance was able to score so well compared to the other ones,” she concluded.

Last year the team made it to nationals, but did not place.

Senior Team Leader Aly York said the team’s commitment to rehearsing special tricks outside of regular practice played a key role in the team’s success this year.

“You can’t expect to be number one,” said York. Somebody’s always better than you. So you have to work harder. You have to work for what you want. You have to work for what you get and I think this team this year has worked their butts off to get where we are,” she finished.

Together the team and its only two seniors, York and Katie Ford, perform one last time as Wildcats next month for a St. Judes benefit.

Crystal Donaldson can be reached at [email protected].