For the second year in a row, the Daviess County High School dance team brought home a national championship.
The team won first place in the small size division of the Game Day category in the National Dance Alliance competition, which took place over the weekend at the Caribe Royale in Orlando.
DC also won “Best in Game Day,” which is awarded to the team with the highest overall score of all size divisions. They beat 68 other teams to capture the overall title.
Last year, the DC dance team won the national title in the Hip Hop category. They placed fourth in Hip Hop this year.
“Coming in we were just thinking about how we had to step up and get another national title since we won last year,” said junior Kyra Rowan. “Some people doubted us, so we wanted to work as hard as we could to prove them wrong.”
Assistant coach Kendal Connor said there was a lot of pressure to win another title, and losing four strong seniors from last year’s team meant they would have to put in extra work.
“It’s kind of hard to have a standard of people expecting us to win, so we just put in that much more time and dedication,” she said. “There’s always that fear of not making it back. Literally half of our team were new and have never competed on a national floor, so it was scary. But they danced like they were seniors on the national stage.”
The lone senior this season was Madison Dunaway, though it was her first year with the team. She was ecstatic for a chance to not only make it to the ultimate stage, but to help DC win a second straight title.
“It was amazing because it was my only opportunity to know what that feels like,” she said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with any other group of girls. I don’t think I stopped screaming for 10 minutes after we won. It was the best feeling ever.”
Rowan said they were feeling confident after a strong performance, but it was still an unreal feeling to win again.
“We all felt really good about the performance,” she said. “We didn’t have any mistakes. We felt like we had the right energy and we were very confident. It was crazy when we won. We were all jumping around and screaming. We really wanted to win and prove it wasn’t a one-time thing.”
Connor said the anticipation built as the results were being announced. Scores were already in the 90s by the time the top five schools were being revealed. Finally, it came down to two teams.
“Top two at nationals is just an amazing feeling anyway because only two teams are left,” Connor said. “When they called (someone else for second place), we were going crazy. We basically jumped on the stage and tackled the girls.”
With only one senior on this year’s team, Connor has high expectations for next season.
“We have a crazy amount of talent with our six juniors,” she said. “Hopefully they all come back and we’ll have an even stronger year next year.”
Team members are Madison Dunaway (12th), Katelyn Ahart (11th), Avery Heath (11th), Breanna Herrin (11th), Terionna Innman (11th), Hope Miles (11th), Kyra Rowan (11th), Lexie Coomes (10th), Alexa McDuffee (10th), Claire Bean (9th), Carley Durcholz (9th), Gracie Hatfield (9th) and Jordan Lee (9th).
Coaches are Debbie Connor, Kendal Connor and Kelsey Tramill.
