Hawley Nugget Dance Team Ready To Return To State Dance Meet This Weekend

HAWLEY, MN (KDLM) – After a 16-year absence, the Hawley Nugget Dance Team will be back at the State Dance Tournament.

“It’s been a long time for us,” says head coach Erin Christenson. “The jazz team last qualified in 2007, and this is the first time that kick has qualified so we’re very excited to bring both teams down this year.”

Hawley qualified for state with top-three finishes in both jazz and kick at the Section 4A meet in Wadena on February 4th, but it wasn’t without some drama.

“The section meet was very exciting,” says Christenson. “They announced that there was a tie for third place in jazz and the whole crowd gasped. And we knew it was going to be close for us and we figured we were one of the teams that tied. It ended up being us and Frazee, but we beat them on the tie-breaker to go down to State. We’ve been working very hard on our jazz routine. We’ve been in and out of the top three at meets throughout the season. We had no idea how that day was going to go, and we couldn’t be happier that it went in our favor.”

The Hawley kick team took second place at sections.

“Our kick routine has stood out to judges all year,” says Christenson. “It’s a very hard dance. The choreography is very difficult. There are some challenging moves in there. That’s helped out with the judges this year. And the number of girls that we have out this year. We have one of the larger teams in the section which helps us with our transitions.”

The Nuggets have fifteen dancers out for the team this year.

“We are a very young team. We have no seniors this year,” says Christenson. “It’s very exciting that we’re having the success that we are with such a young team. We have two junior captains in Bridgette Albrecht and Maia Langseth and a sophomore captain as well in Laura Burkel, and the rest of our team (Macy Jelinek, Dani Gunning, Katherine Geeslin, Amelia Joy, Faith Hinz, Annika Hanson, Macy Pederson, Jada Bakke, Addyseon Strawsell, Ellie Rosing, Josie Larson, Mckailee Kirsch) are all sophomores, freshmen and eighth-graders.”

While the bright lights of the state dance meet could be an intimidating thing for this team, Christenson and her coaching staff have experience competing at the Target Center.

“There’s going to be some very tough competition on Friday and Saturday,” says Christenson. “This is the best of the best. But our girls are very excited. All of our coaches (Christenson, Hannah Johnson, Grace Johnson) have either danced or coached at State before. So we’re using our experiences to prepare them the best that we can. We know that this team thrives when they’re relaxed and they’re excited so all we need to do is keep the positivity high, work hard, and know that they’ll give their best when they’re out there no matter what.”

The Nuggets will compete in the Class A Jazz competition at 11:30 on Friday. The top eight teams will advance to the finals at 5:30.

The Class A Kick competition begins at 11:30 on Saturday, will the top eight teams advancing to the finals at 5:30.