With 34 teams competing and 74 routines to watch, the poms team will host the Bears Invite in the LZHS field house this Sunday.
The JV team will actually be competing at LZHS on December 8, while the Varsity team will be performing an exhibition dance. The JV team is the State team, and the Varsity team is the Nationals team. For the first time, the poms team was required to split into two competition teams because Nationals and State fall on the same weekend, January 31 – February 2.
The school’s JV team is performing at 3pm and 5:30 pm, with tickets costing $7 for adults, $5 for students and seniors, and free for children 3 years and younger.
“Our biggest competitors in this competition are Glenbrook South, Loyola Academy, St.Charles North, and Stevenson,” Terrie Johlie, head coach, said. But she added that she anticipates the team will do well. “At the last competition, both of our teams placed first and second. I’m looking forward to this weekend.”
The difference between this weekend’s competition and any other competition is that LZ is hosting the event. When the poms team is not hosting the event, they only arrive a couple hours before the performance time. Since LZHS is hosting the event, the girls, parents, and coaches will be at the competition for the whole day and will help run the event.
“The girls [will be] so much more involved,” Johlie said, “Greet[ing] the teams, bring[ing] them (other teams) to [their] rooms, and overall, their expectations will be higher.”
There are many requirements dealing with a poms dance routine. IHSA requires each team to compete against all teams, regardless of the type of routine, such as jazz, pom, hip hop and kick. The school’s team performs pom and hip hop.
“No matter what style [of dance], [the] scoring takes [the] same categories [for each routine],” Johlie said .
The categories that the dance routines are judged on are difficulty, overall performance, technique, and execution.
“Our difficulty [category] is always high, but our performance [category] can always get better with our execution [category],” Morgan Kamins, senior and head captain, said.
Along with following the requirements for a competition, the girls have to follow another strict schedule for preparing for them.
“We’ve been preparing [for competitions] since September,” Isabel Ramos, freshman, said. “You’re nervous at first, but once you get out there, its fun with your team.”
Practice for competitions are 3:30 – 6pm after school every weekday. The two teams also switch off every other Saturday morning practice which lasts 2 hours.
“Its a really big commitment,” Ramos said, “but its all worth it in the end.”
Poms Competitions:
Sunday, December 8 at LZHS
Sunday, December 15 at Stevenson High School
Sunday, January 12 at Huntley High School
Sunday, January 19th (NSC Championship)
Saturday, January 25 (Sectionals)
Friday, January 31 (State)
