On March 1, the dance team traveled to Orlando, Florida to participate in the 2023 NDA National Championship. 

The team made it to finals last year, so this will be the second time that our Olathe West girls will have gone to nationals.

“I went last year and I really liked the bonding between us all,” junior Maria Forde said. “It was just really fun because we are all kind of like a little family.”

Having to prepare for a competition like this can’t be easy. Long hours and tiring practices go into the preceding weeks in order to ensure they do good.     

“The week before is stressful for sure,” Forde said. “For the past two weeks, we’ve been having 6:30 AM practices, and we’ve also had later practices.” 

While working hard with practicing, the dancers had been preparing their routines, some of which we have seen at pep assemblies, and some we haven’t.

“We’re performing three pieces,” Forde said. “We’re performing our Pom, then we’re performing a kind of lyrical Jazz, and then we’re also doing Game day, which has fight song, band dance, and then a new dance called Poppy.”

The results were posted and the girls placed 25th in Pom routine, 31st in Jazz, and again 31st in the Game Day category.