The St. Louis High School poms team had a busy Saturday, Jan. 18. They competed at regionals starting early in the morning and lasting all day. The SLHS poms team worked hard and put on an outstanding performance that earned them a place and a qualification for the state meet.
This big opportunity made the team extremely happy and excited for what is to come next. Senior and Captain Elizabeth Starry said, “The most exciting part of the performance was seeing that we made it to states. Preparing for regionals looked like a lot of practice and consistency. We practiced six days a week meaning there was a lot of physical pressure on your body. However, every practice we had made it easier and easier!”
Another senior on the team is Elizabeth Burt. She has been on the poms team for four years and said, “The easiest part of preparing for regionals is learning the routine. Memorizing the routine takes time, but it is easy to get it done quickly. However, the hardest part is cleaning the routine. In order to clean, everyone has to be at practice and we go over every single move to make sure we are all executing them the same way. We also have to run formations over and over again to be able to space out evenly on the gym floor.” Burt also said, “The most exciting part of the performance is hearing the crowd cheer. The crowd cheering gets you so pumped up and it makes you not even think about your nerves. Though, something we could work on is making sure we can do the routine without any mistakes. At competitions, mistakes can make us not place well, so we need to be able to do it without any. We then need to work on using a lot of muscle and hitting our moves with a purpose.”
This year sophomore, Bella Patterson joined the poms team. Patterson said, “For me, the most exciting part was when I realized I was actually competing and the adrenaline kicked in to give me my best performance. There was a lot of endurance and running the routine over and over again. It was hard, but it was all worth it in the end and we can’t wait for the state competition.”
The SLHS poms team will compete at state at Eastern Michigan University Feb. 9, with hopes that their outstanding performance will impress the judges.
