Drill teams compete with attitude

By Eileen O. Daday | Daily Herald Correspondent

Teams took the floor with some attitude Saturday during a poms competition at Rolling Meadows High School.

Take the winter guard team from Grant High School in Fox Lake. Dressed in pastel colored dresses with matching tall flags, they looked like storybook princesses. But the storyline that unfolded did not live happily ever after.

“This is a reality check for fairy tales,” said junior captain Mary Marienau, of Fox Lake, who was the only dancer in black.

“Basically, we all come together to tell Prince Charming to leave our lives,” adds junior Jennifer Jones of Round Lake Beach. “We can stand on our own.”

Likewise, the winter guard team from Round Lake High School described their tall flags routine as “upbeat and sassy,” while dancers from Fenton High School in Bensenville performed what they called an “energetic, in your face” hip hop routine.

In all, nearly 30 schools from throughout the suburbs sent dance teams to Rolling Meadows for one of the first regional qualifying tournaments, though only a few advanced to state.

With nearly 450 competitors and more than 600 spectators, as well as coaches, judges and parent volunteers, it was a happening place.

The contest, sanctioned by the Illinois Drill Team Association, drew everything from flags, poms and jazz teams, to those competing in hip hop, more lyrical routines, and the association’s newest category, steppers.

Teams that did not qualify will have more chances at upcoming regional tournaments, as the season progresses toward the state contest, slated for March 12 in Champaign.

Wheeling High School’s Crucial Step Clique step team won the state title last year in Champaign, and at Rolling Meadows, it took first place in its division.

Its members took the floor dressed as nurses in surgical scrubs and went onto amaze the crowd with a routine that mixed stomp and step moves, with some hip hop woven in, all while clapping and stomping their feet in unison.

“We have to be precise within the different variations of rhythms,” said head coach Crystal Ellis Abdullah, a math teacher at Wheeling.

Their runner-up last year at state, the Diamond Steppers from Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, performed a routine around a three-ring circus theme, and also qualified.

Christopher Owens, a Waubonsie Valley senior and one of the few male performers in the field, said the new category within the Illinois Drill Team Association is breathing new life into the 32-year old poms organization.

“It’s something different from the traditional poms and hip hop routines,” Owens said. “It’s more cultural, and something you don’t get to see very often.”

Kelly Pfeiffer, head poms coach at Rolling Meadows, said the skill level continues to increase each year, as well as the variations on different themes, as teams try to stand out from the field.

Buffalo Grove High School’s varsity Bisonettes qualified their pom dance routine, while Rolling Meadows’ varsity poms squad narrowly missed advancing with their lyrical routine set to the song, “Bleeding Love.”

“We’ll have more chances to qualify,” Pfeiffer said. “This is the beginning of the season.”