Stingers Headed For State Again

Senior Stingers Abbey Hale, Lexie Small and Kelsie Klingenberg prepare for their fourth year at state finals after the dancers departed Highland’s sectional with first place scores in both genres last weekend. The pom dance judging, in which girls are defending class A state champions, resulted in a sectional repeat first place trophy. The team’s jazz number to “I’ll Put a Spell on You” gained ten points over its previous rank. This leap is commendable since it reflects only the past week’s fine tuning and the first time for the Stingers to come out on top of this year’s tough field of jazz. The team of 12 has only three seniors, one junior, Alyssa Lohmann, and one sophmore, Madi Oltmann. The remaining seven dancers are freshman who will make their inaugural trip to IDTA state competition next Saturday at the Prairie State Convention Center in Springfield. The path to state is well-traveled by Coach Chelsea Harre, who has taken dancers to IDTA state finals all four years of her tenure with NCHS.