State Champions

Give me a “C.”

Give me a “H.”

Give me a “A.”

Give me a “M.”

Give me a “P.”

Give me a “S.”

What’s that spell?

Champs.

Randolph’s Baylie Shearer was a jumble of nerves sitting in the stands awaiting results after the Nebraska State Dance & Cheer Championships.

Shearer along with eight of her teammates on the Randolph dance team and Coach Brittany Flaming had put in the hours of work and dedication to get to this point.

It’s what she had been working toward the last four years on the dance team, Shearer said.

As third place and then second place was announced, she started questioning whether the team would even place. She thought through her own performance. She had reviewed the video. But she couldn’t shake the feeling she had during the performance - the feeling that they had nailed it.

“The beginning of pom for state was my favorite. It was the most in synch we’d ever been. You could just tell it was going to be a good dance,” she said.

When it was announced Randolph won both the hiphop and pom contests in Class D - state championships in both, everyone was jumping up and down, screaming, said senior teammate Abby Schmit.

“I was trying to hold the tears back, so you weren’t a mess for pictures afterwards,” Shearer said.

Judges critiqued everything — their fast-paced and stuntfilled routines on choreography, execution, communication, and projection.

They constantly went over all these things during practice sessions and at home basketball games.

The Randolph team beat out 10 other teams in pom and six other teams in hip-hop.

Flaming said she is so proud of her team and thrilled to be part of the championship-winning effort in just her first year as coach of the Randolph squad.

“The time, effort and dedication these girls put into it, they’re good role models look up to,” for younger dancers to she said.

Many of the team members are involved in other activities so they had to work practices around other schedules - meaning the girls had to be ready to dance at 6 a.m. and there were practices that went late into the evenings as well. Their Christmas break was spent learning their routines for state competition.

COVID also hampered their progress as half the team had to be quarantined two weeks prior to state.

When they were finally all able to practice together, lastminute tweaks were stressful, Schmit said.

But this is a team that doesn’t shy away from a challenge.

“Each and every one of us are all passionate for the sport,” Schmit said. “We’ve all worked hard to get where we’re at and it paid off in the end.”

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