Southwestern dazzles at Nationals

Apr. 20—The Southwestern Community College dance team, the Dazzlers, made history this month as the college's first team to compete at the College Classic National Championship in Orlando, Florida.

"This year, a lot of the girls had interest in doing this," Coach Paige Busch said. " We had some whose high schools had done it in the past. They wanted to push themselves to compete at a higher level against other colleges and university across the United States."

In order to compete at nationals, the team had to attend a regional competition. The Dazzlers competed at the Dance Team Union Des Moines and Kansas City regionals.

nationals extended the season. It started with tryouts in May, summer fundraisers, camp in August and didn't end until last week.

"Going to nationals extended season a month and a half from originally preparing," Busch said. "We had increased practice times and training. We had guests come in help us with routines."

The Dazzlers performed in the open pom, hip hop and jazz categories where they competed against colleges and universities from all over the United States.

"The girls learned two brand new routines to take to nationals," Busch said. "The girls were excited, and they all worked hard. They were willing to put in the effort. It wasn't easy."

This season, the team earned top-five placements in all competitions including an overall grand champion award, first place category winners and top five-placements at the National Championship with less than .2 points between placements in the pom category.

They learned 10 routines this year, performed on more than 35 different days, practiced around 10 to15 hours a week and traveled to the Iowa, Missouri and Florida to compete against some of the best teams in the nation.

At nationals, the girls had two fifth-place and one third-place finish in preliminaries to send them to the finals. There, they took fourth in open pom and fifth in open jazz and open hip hop.

"I can definitely say we were nervous and anxious through the whole time. It was a first for me as the coach and for the girls," Busch said. "We learned so much during our time, and cried a lot of happy tears. They worked their tails off to get to this point. I'm very proud of how they performed. They did an amazing job representing Southwestern and they set the bar. Watch out for us in upcoming years."

Local girls

Area girls make up more than half of the team with dancers from Lenox, Nodaway Valley, Mount Ayr and Creston.

Braelyn Baker, Maria Groumoutis, Jalyn Klejch and Chloe Marlin all graduated from Creston High School.

Klejch has been a dancer for 16 years, but as a sophomore, will be hanging up her dancing shoes after graduation. "I got involved with the Dazzlers when Paige Busch reached out to me and asked if I wanted to continue my dancing career after high school, and I really wanted to," Klejch said. "The SWCC Dazzlers is a great team to get involved with. They're very friendly and will always encourage you to be a better person. It was a great opportunity for me."

Hip hop is Klejch's favorite dance style, and she teaches it to middle school students at Project C Dance Company in Creston.

Other area girls include Hailley Brown of Lenox, Morgan Brown of Nodaway Valley and Madalynn Stuart of Mount Ayr.

"I think the community has such a backbone to us," Busch said. "They are willing to support us. Businesses donated money and sponsored us. Having local girls helps with that. They recognize the face, the name. The businesses can say they were a part of the national championship team. It also helps the girls stay close to home and represent their home high school."

Though the team is graduating eight girls, the freshmen have already made plans to compete at nationals again next year.

"We look forward to continuing to grow the team, grow the performance opportunities and attending nationals in upcoming years," Busch said. "We are actively recruiting as we continue to bring in talent."

If interested in becoming a dazzler, fill out the Recruit Me form on the Dazzlers page of the SWCC website.