By Dillan Straight
The college’s dance team is looking to make a mark this season, going leaps and bounds above the years prior and initiating a new standard from members of previous seasons.
“This year we’re really making an effort to really support all athletics on campus,” said Golden Girls coach Amy Sellers. “We aren’t able to go to every different athletic game, but we’re doing our best to send as many girls as we can to everything we can.”
Heading into her second year under the helm, Sellers is already making changes to coast the team into a brighter direction.
Members of the team are looking toward an improvement that of last season. Using their set techniques from last year and building onto their new ones learned previously in camp.
“We all started new last year together; there were only three returning members from last season so it’s like a fresh start,” said Golden Girl member Kitty Griffith.
“We are probably four months ahead of where we were around this time last year,” said Sellers. “[The teams] changed in having practice over the summer, going to camp, and having practice every day. Considering last fall where we had only three practices a week, just the fact we’re able to meet every single day and work on different skills every single day, it’s made them improve a tremendous amount.”
Consisting of 13 members this season, 12 active and one as an alternative, the Golden Girls are quickly finding a rhythm in an already very promising start. As a part of Division-III, the college’s dance team is part of 12 teams who competed this past summer. Four of these teams compete in the same division as the Golden Girls, giving the team an extra leg up on their competition.
“We weren’t able to go last year, so we just did a home camp here on our own,” said Sellers. “Brought in some choreographers and did some boot camp type of work last year. But this year it was a huge success in how none of them had been to a college camp before and we came out with some pretty great placing.”
In addition to landing a bid to nationals in the process, the team claimed a couple awards in the process.
“It’s a good way for us to compete at camp and then we also compete against those same people at nationals,” said Sellers on the teams’ play at camp. “We placed silver in our game-day routine which was against all divisions. So we competed against the big universities as well.”
To help fund their trip to Daytona, the Golden Girls are looking to raise money with a 14-month calendar representing various parts of campus.
Calendars can be purchased in the student center in the coming weeks at $15 each.
Contact Dillan Straight, sports editor, at dstraig1@jccc.edu.