The Mystique team huddles together, hand in hand, as they wait for the announcer to say it – the winner of the poms dance. Screams erupt from the huddle as their names are announced. They just placed first.

On Saturday, varsity Mystique performed at Regionals, placing first in 3A Poms and second in 3A Jazz.

Sadie Eggmann, senior, was both excited and surprised by their performance.

“It was a really hard category, so we were super surprised and it was the first time we had done poms in a few year,” Eggmann said.

Eggmann said their division was exceptionally tough this year. Of the six teams they performed against, one won Nationals last year.

In preparation for future competitions, like nationals in February, the team will continue to practice three times a week and improve on the criticism they received from the Regionals judges.

“We will get the critiques from the last competition and we will work hard to make those improvements,” Eggmann said.

Kenzie Mckeon, coach, is pleased with the girls’ performances.

“Both teams had great performances. We had some categories of really tough competition, so the coaches were really proud of the girls,” Mckeon said, “After they performed, we were really proud of how they did, but with how steep the competition was, we weren’t sure what the place was going to be.”

Right now, the girls will be off on a break until January when they’ll begin working for more competitions for the rest of the school year.

“Once we come back in January, we’re going to be focusing, again really re-evaluating the cleanliness of our dances and trying to see if there’s any other things we can add in or change as we head into the next competition,” Mckeon said.

The team is also working to make sure never to “settle” for less than their best.

“I think just reminding them that the teams that we are up against are also continuing to improve and that even if we do get first, we’re really just competing with ourselves,” Mckeon said. “As we move on, the next competition will be different teams, so we don’t settle from one competition to the next.”

Kristin Rapach, junior, is also a member of the varsity team and is proud of their performance.

“It felt so good because all of our hard work has paid off,” Rapach said. “We had been preparing for this moment since February.”

Despite the fact that they don’t have another competition until January, Rapach said the team will continue to practice their performances during basketball games.

“We will continue to run over and deep clean our dance,” Rapach said. “We want to continue to grow and work from the corrections that we have received and improve those. Hopefully, with these improvements, we continue to win.”