In 2014, Rachel Kilpela – then a junior on the Forest Lake dance team – knew the team had a shot at placing within the top three teams to punch the team’s ticket to state – the first time in the dance team’s history. She heard third place called. It wasn’t Forest Lake. She remembers feeling a little deflated, but also thinking “Ok, I mean, it’s still possible.”
Ten years removed from that moment, Kilpela – the Rangers dance team head coach – and the Forest Lake dance team found themselves in the exact same position at the Section 3AAA dance tournament at Bloomington Kennedy High School’s gymnasium on the afternoon of Saturday, Feb. 10. Spring Lake Park had just been called for third place in the jazz category. The Rangers had been neck and neck with Spring Lake Park most of the season, beating them in their own invite in December. But competitors Centennial, Mounds View, Blaine, and newcomers to the section Two Rivers have been close contenders this season, at times within a point or two of each other.
Senior captains Ella Johnson and Reese Siedow both felt a twinge of disappointment and worry as Spring Lake Park dancers accepted their medals and trophy. Siedow “slumped down a little bit.” Johnson said she “felt a pit in my stomach.”
“I was like ‘Oh, dang,’” she added.
But fellow senior captain Madi Blom held out hope for a medal and a chance at state this year.
“I thought, ‘Oh, we’ve beat them before, this isn’t the end. Like, we can still get second. It’s been so back and forth [this season] it could’ve been anybody’s game.”
In a single-file line, the dancers, clasped hands – on in front and back of the other – and bowed their heads waiting for second place to be announced.
“We all grabbed a little tighter and leaned a little closer,” Siedow said.
It was Blom’s belief in a Ranger second-place finish that proved to be true as the announcer called Forest Lake’s jazz team for the section runner-up, just like Kilpela had experienced exactly a decade ago.
“It was such a moment of connection between us. We all just grabbed each other and were wrapped in each other,” Blom said. Tears streamed down surprised faces of the dancers and coaches, and Forest Lake fans – some with tears in their own eyes – roared.
“My ears were ringing. I couldn’t hear anything,” Siedow said.
Forest Lake had edged out Spring Lake Park by two rank points, averaging just 2.6 points ahead of the Panthers dance team by the eight judges, and behind first-place Blaine who boasted a rank-point score of 12, with an average score of 74.1 – just above Forest Lake’s 72.6.
“It was a surreal experience. It was truly like a dream,” Johnson said, adding “I’m so proud of everyone.”
It was a moment Kilpela has been picturing since her senior year in 2015, the last year the Forest Lake dance team clinched a state berth, and has been working towards since she took over the head coaching position in the 2016-2017 season.
“It's been a lot of culture-building, getting the kids to build into it,” she said of her last eight seasons.
Jazz routine
Before the season, the team chose to use the song “Got it in you” by Banners for a lyrical-style routine with an uplifting and encouraging theme.
“We chose the song because we felt like it would be a good one,” Kilpela said earlier this season.
The song proved to become an anthem as the season wore on as the Rangers battled Mounds View for the Suburban East Conference championship in December, when the Rangers took home first places in both categories. (The overall trophy for jazz went to Mounds View, while Forest Lake beat the Viewettes for the overall kick trophy.) It was putting a story to the dance that helped the team, Blom said.
“We kind of put the conference season into our dance, and I think that helped us fight back,” Blom said.
Throughout January, the dancers worked hard on their technique in practices, pushing for consistency in the upped-difficulty level. A difficult turn set was set at the beginning of the season with the hope the girls would be able to not just execute it, but keep their turns in sync.
“At the start of the season, [it] was like, ‘That’s hard. We might not be able to get it all the way to sections,’” Kilpela said. But the dancers kept working on it while the coaches decided to keep the turn set in for the conference championships.
“We were just like, ‘Let’s stick with it.’ The kids got it, and as they continued to get it more and more, it just continued to build,” Kilpela said.
Kipela began pushing an elevated skill difficulty level last season in hopes of becoming more competitive. It worked, as last year Forest Lake placed fourth in both jazz and kick, the highest the team had placed at sections since the 2015 season (though the team changed sections six years ago; Forest Lake had previously been in a section that included dance team powerhouses Maple Grove and Brainerd.) This year, that focus continued.
“We knew if we’re going for that difficulty, they have to get it,” Kilpela said.
The team executed that turn sequence, and the rest of the dance, with the confidence and consistency they had built throughout the season on the section floor at Bloomington Kennedy gym floor.
Kilpela had told her team moments before heading out on the gym floor that “We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. We haven’t been to state in nine years. We don’t have that stress and that pressure of upholding however many years at state. We said, ‘Let’s mess stuff up. Let’s mess up who goes to state from this section,’ and they did just that.”
Kick routine
It was Section 3AAA-newcomers Two Rivers which ultimately clinched the third-place spot for the final slot to go to state in the kick category, just above Forest Lake’s kick team, which danced to a mix of songs they entitled “Girl’s Night.”
The Rangers dance team came in at a tight fourth place with a rank score of 23, just a half-rank point behind Two Rivers – as close as it can get before a tie-breaker is used, and were nearly tied scoring points wise.
“We walked off the floor feeling like we did our absolute best. …The top six or seven teams in this section were neck and neck,” Kilpela said.
Spring Lake Park clinched the section championship in the kick category, while Blaine took home a second place. The fourth-place finish by the Rangers ties last year’s team best since 2015.
“We felt we really had a strong performance, and that was all we could ask for,” Kilpela said. “We just wanted it to feel good. If it was our last time, let's make it the best time.”
Rise together
This year, the team for both routines didn’t focus on the final placements but doing the best they could.
“Last year we were like ‘State! State! State!’ This year we focused on us, and not about the winning. We focused on building our team culture, and building our team, and it definitely paid off,” Johnson said.
“We just want to have a good year, we want to get together, we want to rise together, we want to do all of it together,” Siedow added.
And together, the Rangers jazz team will take the dance floor one last time this season.
The Forest Lake dance team will compete at the Target Center in the Class AAA division for the jazz category on Friday, Jan. 15, which begins at 1:50 p.m. Tickets are $17.50 for adults and $11.50 for students, and can be purchased at mshsl.org/tickets.
Most Popular
Comments / 0