Park dance team: Wolfpack kick off season at Chaska, compete against past state champs

The Park High School Wolfpack dance team finished its first competition of the season on Saturday, Dec. 1, at Chaska High School.

Park took ninth in the High Kick portion of the meet with 27 points and 11th in the Jazz Funk competition with 33 points in its season opener.

According to Park head coach Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger, Park competed against the past state champions and state participants in the meet and had five weeks to learn and master two routines.

“With all of those factors, the team performed very well,” Hemmingsen-Jaeger said. “They scored better at Chaska on Saturday than this time last year, which was a goal going in to the competition. There’s only improvement to be had, and with these scores in hand, the coaching staff will be able to target which areas that need to be worked on.”

Unlike other sports like basketball and football, dance is scored in five different categories (from a scale of 1 to 10). Those categories are also broken down into sub-categories. Five judges score the routines and their scores are totaled across the different categories to get the final score.

In addition to the point system, the judges also rank the teams (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on) based on the total points. The highest and lowest score get dropped as well and the remaining three ranked scores get added to get to final ranking, so if a team gets ranked 1st, 1st and 2nd its total rank points is 4). The rank points determine placing.

The Wolfpack dance team opened the Suburban East Conference season at home on Monday, after the Bulletin went to print. Park’s next competition will be Tuesday, Dec. 11, at Woodbury High School.

“We’re excited to see with how we match up to our direct competition and are confident that the athletes will once again rise to the occasion and perform to the best of their abilities,” Hemmingsen-Jaeger said.

Tags: sports, dance, park, wolfpack, prep, updates