Competition season for SHS’s dance team, Cenergy, has recently wrapped up, but while it lasted, it was something that brought schools from all across the state together in a skirmish race towards one common goal:  winning the state championship.

At the end of the State competition on March 20, Cenergy was left as the last team standing, earning the team its second state title since 2013.

However, before Cenergy could complete its ride down the pathway to victory, they first had to deal with a roadblock in East Central, a team that has proved to be a rival of sorts to SHS in recent years when it comes to dancing.

This rivalry grew its roots based on previous altercations between the two teams. For one, SHS has struggled to beat East Central in past contests. But, one thing that really sparked some tension was an event described by SHS dance coach Heather Todero where she says that East Central stole moves out of the SHS dance team’s repertoire.

“(East Central) actually stole our moves, and they went on to win a contest with them,” Todero said.

However, this unfortunate experience actually turned out positively because Todero says it made beating East Central, and eventually winning the championship, even sweeter for the dancers.

Adding to this, head dance coach Jessica Walpole thinks that the bad blood between the two teams doesn’t necessarily have to be viewed as a bad thing.

In fact, Walpole says that the enhanced competition between SHS and East Central proved to be a positive thing. She says it was something that went on to give Cenergy more motivation to go out and perform well. Since the team knew there were other schools specifically looking to beat them, Cenergy knew they had to step up their game in order to take the win.

Walpole says that, paired with a state championship win,   beating East Central was a right of passage for Cenergy .

“In the world of dance…it’s hard to find a school that you can be positively competitive with,” Walpole said. “Just getting first place is one thing, but being able to go against another team where you know that they’re really good and that they’ve worked hard too kind of validates that (the SHS dance team is) on that level as well.”