For the second year in a row, the Liberty Belles were able to compete at a national level, traveling to Orlando, Florida in March.

The Belles competed in medium varsity pom and jazz category where they placed 15th out of 26 teams overall, earning their first trophy in the jazz finals this year.  

After doing so well at nationals last year, it was no surprise when the dance team did just as well as they did.

This year they competed for the first time in the jazz category, meaning that the competition was more challenging. They competed against a total of 26 teams, beating about half of them.

“The competition was fierce so everyone was just really happy to make it to finals,” senior Samantha Clynes said.

Throughout the year, the team practices four days a week, for about two and half hours each day. However, when it got closer to nationals, they practiced for up to three hours.

Every day at practice the team conditions in various ways, the team builds endurance by running up and down the stairs and then continue running their dances over and over again. The team also kept up with practice while in Florida.

Other than dancing, the team was also able to do some sightseeing while in Florida.

They went to Universal Studios, Hard Rock Cafe and during downtime, they were able to relax and go swimming.

Even though the team had a lot of fun doing these different things, at the end of the day they went to compete.

They performed two different dances; jazz and pom. After the first round of performances, they were not guaranteed to perform again. Luckily, they were able to earn a high enough score to advance to finals in the jazz category.

“I was really happy when I heard the results because after working so hard all year it actually showed,” sophomore Delaney Engelhardt said.

It’s a big deal to advance to finals when competing on the national level, especially with Liberty’s team still being so new.

Coach Amanda Miller hopes to continue to develop the dance program in the years to come.

“Even though the team is only 5 years old, I have witnessed tremendous growth,” coach Miller said. “Competing at the national level is a new challenge for our program and forces us to strive to reach a new level of competition, which we will continue to work at.”

All of the Belles hard work and extra efforts definitely paid off at the biggest competition of the year, NDA Nationals.