Keeping track of all the competitions and games that Mead High participates in can be challenging. And this is probably why some students may not have known that the MHS poms team took part in a competition on Wednesday, Nov. 2.

This event was called a league competition. It’s a competition divided into two parts: cheerleading and dance, which was split in two subcategories, poms and hip hop.

In the dance world, the purpose of competing is to receive feedback about what is needed to improve. Since each routine is different from one another, the teams tend to compete against the score more than against other schools. In this competition, there were three judges judging three categories: technique, cohesion, and overall impression.

In each category there are varying elements. Every element was scored out of 10 and, at the end, the team is provided with a score out of 100.

This was a competition that was open to local schools that could decide to choose to participate or not. The cheerleading teams performed first, the poms teams second (which consisted of Holy Family, Windsor, Centaurus, and Mead High School), and the hip hop teams last.

The MHS team was second to perform its poms dance. If you want to see the performance, you can find it on the Instagram profile for Mead Athletics.

Holy Family won the pom category and Windsor and Centaurus tied. In this case they considered execution, and if the tie remained they considered technique. Centaurus broke the tie ending second. Mead High School was only 2.5 points behind the tied teams.

Poms coach Chloe McClellan said, “Overall, I liked this competition, because it did exactly what we needed it to do by providing us with specific feedback on what to work on or change over the coming month before State.”

She continued, “I’m proud that, despite the changes our MHS Dance Team has faced with a new coach and how soon this competition falls in our competitive season, they were able to learn a routine, compete well and be in the same ‘playing field’ as schools who have not endured that kind of change and chaos this semester.”

State is coming up and McClellan is ready to take it on. “I think given the feedback we received and our reinvigorated drive to succeed, our team will be more than ready to perform well at State,” she said.

Asking her for any advice to our pom girls she said, “My biggest advice for athletes would be to engage in those conversations about how to improve and keep working hard.”

Mead High is wishing good luck to our dancers for the State competition on Dec. 10.