HARRISBURG, S.D. — The Watertown cheer and dance teams both earned fourth-place finishes Thursday at the Eastern South Dakota Conference Meet in Harrisburg.
The Watertown cheer squad placed fourth overall with a score of 266.5, while host Harrisburg captured the top spot with a score of 296.5.
Watertown head coach Mallory Hoffman praised her team’s execution during the competition.
“They had loud voices, synchronization in running tumbling and all stunts were clean,” Hoffman said. “We will continue to work hard on perfecting our routine this week as we wrap up our season and head to the State tournament.”
Hoffman noted that inconsistency in judging impacted the cheer team’s final placement.
“Unfortunately the judges did not score our running tumbling difficulty correctly,” Hoffman said. “Our score sheets mentioned needing 11 layouts for full difficulty and we performed 12. Each judge only gave us 3.5 on difficulty instead of a 5. Therefore we did not get 4.5 total points for competing the 12 layouts. Those missed 4.5 points cost us third place.”
In the dance competition, the Arrow Dance team also finished fourth overall with a team score of 36. Watertown placed third in pom with 250 points and third in jazz with 264.5 points. Brandon Valley took home the Grand Champion title with a score of 40.
Both Watertown cheer and dance will finish their season next weekend at the State Meet in Rapid City. SDPB will provide coverage and live streams on its website and YouTube.
