Legs fly–synchronized in the air. My heart races to the beat of “Every Time We Touch” by Cascada as I perform my last Woottonettes routine ever.

Rewind three days. It’s Tuesday, April 10. Three days until the pep rally. Three days for the Woottonettes to know their routine inside and out.

In the days prior to the pep rally performance, the entire group of Wottonettes –dancers and coaches alike– were in high gear. With practices Tuesday night, Thursday night and Friday at lunch, the entire team was putting in a lot of time. For me, although three practices in a week may seem like a lot–and it was indeed more than the team’s weekly routine– I saw it as a blessing. There is nothing more therapeutic to me than ending a long school day and sports practice with an hour devoted to dancing it out and hanging with the boys. Not only do I get to be around some of my favorite people, but I get to release my emotions on the dance floor as well. Although our week leading to the performance was busy, I enjoyed every minute of practice and performance. “Practice is an awesome time dancing and cracking jokes,” sophomore dancer Nate Gilkey said.

The day of the dance, I was excused from classes after sixth period to meet up with the team and get in the zone. The entire team offers a piece of advice: when you are outside for multiple hours wearing cut up shirts– bring sunscreen. “I was on the field setting up with SGA for hours. When I got home, my arms were completely burned,” junior dancer and SGA member Hunter Band said. As for myself, the afternoon spent without sunscreen led to a somewhat painful weekend.

As we fried in the sun while stretching and rehearsing, the stadium began to fill up in a sea of red, white and blue.
As the music starts and junior dancer Adam Friedman is lifted into the air, we begin. We move through lifting up Adam and then move into other parts of the dance like our kick line and ripple wave with the pompoms. Then, as the music begins to fade, we throw our pompoms in the air and break into a circle with each dancer doing their own thing to close our final performance of the year.

The secret behind the Woottonettes choreography doesn’t lie with the dancers, but with the coach of Woottonettes who single-handedly helped the team to a successful year: sophomore Haley Scheinberg. With some coaching adversity mid-season, Scheinberg remained dedicated to the team and led multiple practices alone. “I’m very proud of the whole team, this year was a lot of fun,” Scheinberg said.

Without the direction coaching provides us at practice, I think we’d struggle to complete a dance.

With the end of the season comes the graduation of some of the team’s oldest faces. Senior Max Pasternak has been a dedicated dancer since his freshman year and is the longest standing member.

Looking back at this year, Woottonettes has put on three performances. From the fall pep rally, to Midnight Madness, to the spring pep rally, I will miss every second spent dancing now that it is over.

As this year’s Woottonettes season has come to an end, the program looks forward to growing and improving in seasons to come with new members and new coaches.

Josh Messitte

Managing Editor