ST. MICHAEL — It’s going to be a busy next few weeks for the Brainerd Warriors.
For the sixth straight year, Brainerd will be advancing to state in both kick and jazz after qualifying for both Saturday, Feb. 4.
Brainerd won the section kick title with 721 total points out of 800 possible. Brainerd tied with Sartell in rank points, but outscored their Central Lakes Conference rivalry by four points.
Brainerd’s big points came in choreography where it outscored Sartell 75-70 in creativity and got another point from visual effectiveness. It also outscored Sartell in difficulty and kicks.
“We’re ecstatic with the scores,” Brainerd head coach Cindy Clough said. “The fact that we had a 95, a 93 and a 91 from judges that is awesome. We had 72 points in kick height so I was happy with that because we beat Sartell by one point there. Then in visual effectiveness, we really went up. We really needed to add more of that creativity and that’s what we focused on after (Central Lakes) conferences. We were six ahead of Maple Grove in that.
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“The area that we really need to work on is placement and control and degree of accuracy. It’s been a struggle for us. We have to really keep working on it. It’s sameness on everything and spacing on the floor. We’ll be hitting that hard right now. The great thing about this is that those two categories are very fixable before the state tournament.”
It’s the 22nd straight year Brainerd has advanced to state in kick and the sixth straight time it has advanced in jazz.
Brainerd placed third in jazz, but Clough was expecting that but hoping for second. Brainerd scored 680 points compared to second-place Sartell, which finished with 678 points. Sartell secured 11 rank points to 13 for Brainerd.
Maple Grove won jazz with 737 points and five rank points.
“I felt like we had one of our best performances of the year,” Clough said. “We were really on. I thought our energy was great. I thought we were going to be third or second We were hoping for second because it was close between us.
“We’re happy with where we are. We really put all of our efforts into kick the last two weeks. We thought we would make it to state in jazz and we thought we would hit it between sections and state. However, we’re wising we would have made some of the changes that we are going to make now. I think we would have come out ahead of Sartell.”
Brainerd topped fourth-place rogers by 67 points and eight rank points.
Brainerd will host its state tune-up show 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, at Central Lakes College. The entry fee is $5 with proceeds going toward the high school dance team.
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Team results
Jazz: 1-Maple Grove (737 points, 5 rank points), 2-Sartell (676 points, 11 rank points, 3-Brainerd (680 points, 13 rank points), 4-Rogers (613 points, 21 rank points), 5-St. Micahel-Albertvile (590 points, 26.5 rank points), 6-Andover (563 points, 31.5 rank points), 7-St. Cloud (564 points, 32.5 rank points), 8-Anoka (548 points, 35.5 rank points), 9-Champlin Park (507 points, 43 rank points), 10-Coon Rapids (460 points, 50 rank points), 11-Osseo (406 points, 56 rank points), 12-Buffalo (391 points, 56 rank points)
Kick: 1-Brainerd (721 points, 7 rank points), 2-Sartell (717 points, 7 rank points), 3-Maple Grove (673 points, 15 rank points), 4-Rogers (613 points, 20 rank points), 5-Anoka (562 points, 29 rank points), 6-St. Cloud (563 points, 30 rank points, 7-St. Michael-Albertville (563 points, 30 rank points), 8-Andover (531 points, 37 rank points), 9-Champlin Park (464 points, 45.5 rank points), 10-Coon Rapids (451 points, 48.5 rank points), 11-Osseo (407 points, 56 rank points), 12-Buffalo (400 points, 57.5 rank points).
Next: Class 2A State meet at Target Center, Minneapolis Feb. 17-18.
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