The team is taking a com- pletely different approach and adding one more dance for the 2024 state competition, which will take place this Friday, De- cember 6, at Wells Fargo Arena and Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines. The Tigers will compete in the Mix category at 9:29 a.m. inside Wells Fargo Arena. At 11:02 a.m, they’ll be in Hy-Vee Hall to perform their Hip Hop routine, and then they’ll head back to the Well for their Novelty dance at 12:02 p.m. They’ll close the day with their Pom routine at 3:48 p.m. at Hy-Vee Hall. What are the differences in the four dances? We’re glad you asked. In the Mix category, every team will perform to the same exact music. Teams have 1 mi- nute, 30 seconds to showcase two ore more types of dance and their interpretations. With its Novelty dance, Gilbert will tell a story to the audience. The group chose to perform “It’s The Hard Knock Life” from the musical Annie. Pom and Hip Hop are pretty self-explanatory. So why choose to shake things up this year? Heubner says she and head coach Amanda DeLancey looked at the strengths of their squad and chose the categories they felt their athletes would enjoy.
Hip Hop, we just found that our girls are strong this season and they love it. “Learning new routines is part of the fun. For this specific group of girls, it’s figuring out how to perform it.” Let’s add one more ingredient to this year’s dance squad that could give it a little extra boost when it steps onto the floor in Des Moines. The girls treat each other as family. They spend time together outside of practice, they cheer each other on in different activities, and they want to have success on the dance floor not only for themselves, but for the girl standing next to them. “Everyone just feels really comfortable around each other and no one is afraid to ask for help, which is a real strong suit of the team,” Heubner said. “We have a good mix of super strong vocal leaders, and then we also have our quiet leaders who are good at including ev- erybody. “What makes this year’s team a little different this year is their eagerness. We get to have fun and we get to be silly, but they all want to work really, really hard.” All of those ingredients are present, and the end results could speak for themselves at the state competition.
“We always let the girls give ideas because we want them to be excited about the routines,” Heubner said. “For example, we
chose Novelty this year be- cause we have girls who are super expressive and they have a lot of fun playing into that. For
50 GAME ON | WINTER 2024-25
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