The St. Louis Pom Pon team competed in the regional competition Sunday, January 13, to start their competition season. The ladies competition season didn’t go as planned. State competition is Jan. 27, and in order to make it there, the team had to qualify by making a certain percentage of points. There are certain requirements and guidelines that each team has to accomplish and then while they are performing, judges score the teams in each category of the score sheet. Unfortunately, the girls fell just short by 1.6 percent of the points to qualify to make it to state.

According to Megan Greenup, “I joined poms my senior year of high school, because I wanted to try something new. I practiced hard everyday, and put my all into this sport because I knew how much it meant to me, our coach, as it was her first year coaching, and the rest of the girls on the team. I thought that we were ready and had it in the bag, but at the end of the day, we fell short to qualifying for the state competition.” Many of the others girls on the team felt the same way. Even coach, Amiee Taylor, thought they were for sure going to qualify for state.

After the competition, Taylor said to the girls, “Ladies, I don’t care what the score sheet says. In my eyes and my heart, you all did amazing. Myself and anyone else out their watching us doesn’t know how we didn’t qualify.”

Although the team did not make it to the State competition, they competed in a different competition altogether the following Sunday. The competition was at the Ryder Center at Saginaw Valley State University. St. Louis Poms is in class C/D, along with nine other teams. At the end of the day, St. Louis came in seventh place out of ten.

Overall, with having such a new team and a new coach, the pom pon team did a pretty good job this season. They tried their hardest and put their all into this sport.