Got some news!
I didn't announce our placement because, well, I and the other parents and coaches assumed we didn't place at the state level on Sunday. I was impressed by at least four squads who were, to me, much better by way of dancing and stunting. There had been a bit of controversy involving another Pop Warner team (Monroe) involving "stacking the deck" by having girls who are gymnasts and are actually at the advanced level competing in the novice division. But we weren't even competing against Monroe since it was a situation that was corrected and they didn't have a novice team this season. But there were a few teams who really had brought their game. Anyway, it was hard for some of the parents who had girls who were literally crying because they couldn't understand why we didn't at least place. (If you saw the video I posted you can see how their timing was perfect, their lines were nice and straight, and there weren't any falls. (We had 2 falls with a clean recovery resulting in only one point total being deducted from our score at the last competition, and we still placed first!) So yeah, it was a bummer. We were all supposed to go out for dinner and celebrate after competition on Sunday evening partially due to the fact that it was going to be over at 5:30 and the girls would be hungry anyway. But also it's nice to celebrate placing, if we were so blessed. When we didn't place the shock was so intense, nobody felt like going for dinner. We all hugged, gave the girls a chin up, and went home.
WELL....
Got a phone call today that the scores were tallied wrong and guess what? We placed THIRD! We now move on to Regionals, and if we place in the top 2, we get to go to the Nationals at Disney in Florida! If we don't move on, its OK. It just really made the girls' day to find out that they didn't do as bad as they thought. We DID legitimately place, and it was good that the situation was caught in time. The team that was announced in our place will get to compete at Regionals too, but I do wonder if they'll even be considered for scoring since actually they were not supposed to move on anyway? Hey, I wish all the teams luck, but that was a bit weird. I wonder what would have happened if they hadn't caught it, at least until later and then what?
Wish us luck! (Our team's theme this year is "What a feeling!")
What a feeling indeed!
