Mitchell cheer and dance team hosts ESD meet today at the Palace

For the first time all year, the Mitchell High School cheer and dance teams get to perform at home Saturday.

At 6:30 p.m. today, the Corn Palace hosts the Eastern South Dakota Conference championships.

“We are really excited to be at home and not have to travel,” MHS cheer and dance coach Angie Sivertson said. “It’s something new to Mitchell and we haven’t had a lot of crowd support since we have been on the road, so it will be exciting to have the student body out there along with the kids’ friends and family.

“We added our alternates for the ESD meet so they have a chance to compete in front of their home crowd.”

The Mitchell cheer team is the first group to compete at the event, meaning the Kernels start at 6:30 p.m.

After Mitchell, a dance team from another town will compete, followed by a cheer team.

The Mitchell dance team is the 16th slated team to compete at the event.

Sivertson said the Mitchell dance team will compete approximately 45 minutes to an hour after the cheer team.

This is the first home meet for both teams this year. For the dance team, it’s the first-ever home meet since the team is in its first year of competition. The cheer team is competing for its second year.

Both teams have had a three-week layoff since their last competition on Oct. 11 in Watertown.

Because of injuries, Sivertson said the teams decided to skip their last competition on Oct. 22 in Aberdeen.

“We had several of the girls out because of injuries, such as sore backs and one of the girls broke her arm,” she said. “So, instead of pushing it and have a rocky ending to the year, we decided to get ready for the ESD competition and the state meet.”

The state meet is Nov. 12 in Brandon. The Mitchell cheer and dance teams already qualified for the state meet after meeting the qualification, which requires both teams to participate in at least two competitions during the year.

The Mitchell cheer and dance teams are not taking the ESD meet lightly, though.

In the large stunting/non-tumbling division for cheer, Mitchell is matched up against Yankton, Huron and Aberdeen Central.

Sivertson said the team changed some of the stunting in its routine in order to make it more difficult to earn the team some more points.

“We could finish anywhere. Aberdeen started off the year with a good routine, but they have upped it big time throughout the year,” she said. “In the last competition, we were within 20 to 25 points of both Huron and Yankton, but they have more experience than us.

“Those teams have beaten us all year, and we are going to have our work cut out for us (today).”

There are four different categories for in the dance competition — hip-hop, jazz, kick and pom. Mitchell competes in the hip-hop category.

Mitchell will be one of two schools competing in the large hip-hip division, along with Pierre.

“We added more difficult tricks to our routine, so I would love to say that we can win the large hip-hop, but it will be tough,” Sivertson said. “The girls have been putting in a lot of hard work and they are excited to be out there competing.”

Tags: sports, updates, kernels, cheer, dance