Thresher Invitational brings competition for both Cheer and Dance
Thresher Invitational brings competition for both Cheer and Dance
Bethel Cheer takes third, fourth, and fifth, while Dance finishes fifth and eighth twice.
Last Friday and Saturday, the Bethel cheer and dance teams hosted the 2023 edition of the annual Thresher Invitational in Thresher Gym. The cheer team finished third, fourth, and fifth in the first, second, and third rounds, respectively. The dance team placed fifth and eighth twice.
For those that don’t know how the competition works, here are the basics you should know from the athletes themselves:
“For rules and scoring, we’re judged on certain sections in the routine — [such as] stunting, running tumbling, standing tumbling, jumps, performance,” junior Michayla Contreras from Las Cruces, N.M. said. “But within each section, we’re also scored for technique, skill, execution, and difficulty.”
“It’s really complicated,” junior Meya Green from Newton said of dance scoring. “You must have certain turning sections and a team leap to earn points. You need to have 8-8 counts for each genre of dance and you also get judged based on difficulty and uniformity.”
The cheer team took third place on Friday night with a score of 78.36. As for Saturday, they captured a score of 76.68 in round two and a score of 74.36 in round three.
“I honestly think the team’s performance could’ve been better this weekend,” sophomore Isaiah Gayden from Maize said. “From the start, we’ve known the level of difficulty and execution that we need to achieve.
“I think given our situation it could’ve been a lot worse, but our performance this weekend is nowhere near how good we know we have to be. We’re continuing to strive for improvement and I’m very optimistic about our skills this year.”
The dance team finished fifth on Friday night with a score of 61.43, but took a step back on Saturday, placing eighth after having their best score on the weekend at 63.43.
“Day one’s performance wasn’t great,” Green said. “But on day two we were really hyped up and had a lot of energy that helped us perform better. I always feel like we perform best when we’re all getting along and building each other up. On day two we were super excited and ready to perform, and that really showed in our performance.”
The Threshers will be back in action on Feb. 17 for the KCAC Championships hosted at Friends University.