Sabres jubilant about high-kick championship

by Dennis Dalman

editor@thenewsleaders.com

On Friday, the Sartell Sabres’ dance team burst into jubilant cheers when the judges announced they had won third place in the Class AA jazz division during the state dance tournament at Minneapolis Target Center.

But that was just a warm-up to what happened later. The next day, Saturday, loud ecstatic cheers from the dancers and their fans just about brought the house down. They had won the state championship in the high-kick division.

“We are super proud of our team,” said head coach Kelly McCarney to the Newsleader the day after the win. “Their hard work, determination and never giving up paid off. These girls are amazing on and off the court. The nine seniors on the team showed such great leadership, and the rookies on the team show such great promise for the future of the team.”

After their triumph, the Sabres and fans celebrated by having a huge pizza party. And there was plenty to celebrate. Not only had they won tops in high-kick but it was the third time they won the championship in that category, the other times in 2011 and 2015. Last year, they took third place in high-kick. They placed second in that category in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

In every year since 2011, the Sartell Sabres medaled at the state tournament. It’s the team’s 13th consecutive year in fierce competition at the state tournament at which all contestants are typically at the top of their form.

Last year, the Sabres also took third in jazz, as they did in 2014.

This year, the team performed a slow jazz dance to the tune “Live Like Legends.” For this championship performance in high-kick, they dazzled the crowd and the judges with a colorful, exotic dance to “Circle of Life” from the Disney movie The Lion King.

McCarney said it was at times a difficult dance season but the girls met every challenge head-on. In an earlier competition in the dance season, one of the girls, senior Stacy Senn, broke her thumb; in another, senior captain Sloan Schwartzentraub, fainted during a performance. Both girls are just fine now, McCarney noted. She said before performing at Target Center, Senn took off her thumb cast, then put it back on later – just one example, McCarney added, of the kind of high-spirited dedication of the team’s members.

At first, the dancers were a bit leery of trying the “Circle of Life” dance because it is highly unusual for a dance competition and involved all kinds of choreography changes and fine-tuning along the way. But, as they learned at Target Center, it was a surefire winner with the judges, not to mention the audience.

There are 30 Sabre dancers, 25 who danced in the high-kick performance and 10 in the jazz competition, including five who also were in the high-kick competition.

There are four coaches for the dancing Sabres: McCarney, who has been head coach for 15 years; Kelsey Keller, who was with the Sabres for 11 years; Molly Carey, a Sabres coach for five years; and Cassie Reimann, a two-year Sabres coach.

For its championship win, the Sabres earned 7 ranking points (the lower the points, the higher the placement).

Second in high-kick was Totino-Grace, 9; and third was defending champ Faribault, 13 points. The following, in this order, were Rocori, 20; St. Cloud Cathedral, 22.5; Benilde-St. Margaret, 27; Austin, 29; Orono, 36; Mound Westonka, 46.5; Simley, 48; Hutchinson, 51; and Chisago Lakes, 57.

In the Class A high-kick category, Aitkin was tops with 5 points, and Eastview Apple Valley was the high-kick champ in the Class AAA category.

The following were the winners of the Class AA jazz category: Benilde-St. Margaret, 6 points; defending champion Totino-Grace, 8; Sartell Sabres, 16; followed by Rocori, 20; Faribault, 23; Mound Westonka, 30; South St. Paul, 32; Simley, 32.5; Sauk Rapids, 43; Marshall, 51.5; Orono, 54; and Rockford, 55.5.

In Class A jazz, the winner was Aitkin, 6; and in Class AAA the champ was Eastview Apple Valley.