Dance Team: Warriors finish successful season with a 4th at state

Cindy Clough knew who her team's toughest competition would be and she was right.

Brainerd finished fourth in the Class 3A state kick finals Saturday, Feb. 16 at Target Center in Minneapolis behind the three teams the Warriors head coach said would be in their way.

Wayzata won the state kick title with five rank points and 762 points followed by Lakeville North, Eastview and Brainerd which scored 695 points and scored 22 rank points.

"In prelims, we came in fifth and we really thought we could be higher than that," Clough said. "So we went back and rallied and worked a lot between the two performances and cleaned up our routine. Our prelim performance, we just felt we had a lot of nerves. We didn't look as powerful as we knew we could. We did rally and came back and looked great in finals. I was so proud of our performance.

"We were only 15 total points away from Eastview, who was third, which is just amazing. We were right up there. We were very proud of our kids."

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State kick

• Class 1A highlights: Aitkin finishes third
• Class 3A highlights: Brainerd finishes fourth

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Brainerd collected its most points in the choreography category with 75 coming from creativity and 77 from visual effectiveness. The Warriors collected 76 points for routine effectiveness and 72 from kick difficulty.

"Usually prelims is harder because you've never been on that floor, however, I felt like we put quite a bit of pressure on them for finals," Clough said. "As a coach, I worried that we were pushing them a little too hard. We had a lot of young kids out there. We had eighth graders out there. So that was amazing to see them. They rose up. They did it.

"I just think this really shows that when kids put their minds to working hard and working together great things happen."

Brainerd's representatives for the Class 3A All-Tournament Kick team were seniors Lauren Crenna and Taylor Madsen.

The Warriors have just six seniors on the kick team, seven if you include "our wonderful manager Mackenzie Grams" and one senior on the jazz team so Clough is excited for next year already.

"We're coming back strong next year for sure," Clough said.

Aitkin advanced to its second finals of the weekend as it landed in the Class 1A kick finals Saturday. Aitkin moved up two spots from its jazz finish Friday to place third behind Lac qui Parle Valley/Dawson Boyd, who swept both divisions, and Yellow Medicine East.

Lac qui Parle finished with five rank points, YME 12 and Aitkin 13.

Madison Slette and Jessica Shaver earned spots on the Class 1A All-Tournament Team for kick. Slette and Adianna Richardson made the all-tournament team for jazz

Class 3A kick scores:

Kick: 1-Wayzata 5, 2-Lakeville North 10, 3-Eastview 15.5, 4-Brainerd 22, 5-Chaska 24, 6-Maple Grove 25

Brainerd results

Kicks: Technique 65, Height 68

Choreography: Creativity 75, Visual effectiveness 77

Difficulty: Routine choreography 65, Formations/transitions 67, Difficulty of kicks 72

Execution: Placement/control 64, Degree of accuracy 66

Routine effectiveness: 76

Total points: 695

Rank points: 22

Class 1A kick scores:

Kick:1-Lac qui Parle Valley/Dawson-Boyd 5, 2-Yellow Medicine East 12, 3 -Aitkin 13, 4-Lake City 23, 5-Frazee 23, 6-Bagley

1/2: The Aitkin dance team celebrates after hearing their name announced for third place in the Class 1A state kick competition Saturday, Feb. 16, at Target Center in Minneapolis. Bill Johnson / Picture Day Pro!

2/2: Lauren Crenna of the Brainerd Warriors dance team leaps during the qualifying round of the Class 3A State kick competition Saturday, Feb. 16, at Target Center in Minneapolis. Bill Johnson / Picture Day Pro!