The Planoettes performed at the ADTS North Texas Regionals at Heath High School for their elite competition Saturday Feb. 1. The elite teams are made up of Planoettes who went through a tryout process for specific dance lines, incorporated within the drill team. They have an elite hip-hop, lyrical, jazz and elite kick line that had dances featured at the competition.

Co-Captain senior Laura Jenkins said she likes the fast pace atmosphere and experience of going to competition.

“I like the hustle and bustle of competition, as strange as it is,” Jenkins said. “I love constantly running off and on stage and performing.”

The officers and sergeants competed as well. Junior officer Savanna Hintz said that it takes time to get ready for competition season. They would spend morning and after school practices performing the routine with counts and gradually speeding up the dance with music. This allowed time to fix errors they saw in the dances.

“Time was a challenge because there wasn’t enough time in the day to perfect the dances,” Hintz said.

During competition, some Planoettes chose to compete with a solo. Junior Taylor Motley and Jenkins were both awarded on their solos, receiving third runner up. The elite teams got awarded the Judges award, best overall technique, best overall precision, best overall choreography, grand champion and several other awards.

“Getting awards at competition is always fun,” Jenkins said. “You get noticed for all the hard work you put into it and in reality, it’s how the team feels about the performance because those trophies are just a number strangers give us.”

Many of the girls have a favorite dance they performed at Regionals. Hintz said her favorite was elite hip-hop.

“I think elite hip-hop was really fun, because it was entertaining to perform and enjoyable for the audience,” Hintz said.  “The music was more upbeat and we could show our personalities more.”

Motley said that competition is helpful because there are judges that pay close attention to detail and their critiques benefit the dances.

“The judges wrote down a few comments that I know will help me improve for future performances,” Motley said.

The elite teams that performed their dances that Saturday are getting ready for the next competition next month, which will include all the Planoettes. The girls have learned valuable lessons from competing and will carry them onto future competitions.

“I learned that with this competition, I should not doubt myself and should push myself through the performance because as a team, we all worked so hard on each dance,” Motley said.