Page 18 | January 26, 2012
www.chaskaherald.com | Chaska Herald
COMPETITIVE DANCE
Opportunities for dancers fewer and far between post-high school BY ERIC KRAUSHAR scores@swpub.com
Life after high school for athletes in sports such as football, basketball and volleyball are numerous in opportunities. But what about sports such as dance? Chaska High School graduate Jillian Bagley is one of the few current members of a collegiate dance team from a Hawks program that has produced a number of top fi nishes at the state meet over the past five years. Bagley, a sophomore at the University of St. Thomas, was one of seven new members out of more than 100 trying out that were selected for the squad in the spring of 2010. “I was very scared. The fi rst day of tryouts we were in a huge gym with a hundred-some girls dancing for what we thought was five spots. We had to learn some combinations and then we had to learn both the jazz and hip hop dances. There were three cuts and the people left after that had a fi nal addition where we interviewed with the coaches and we performed in groups of three in front of a panel of judges. It was pretty intense,” Bagley said. Christina Hamari, a 2009 Chaska High School graduate, had similar odds trying out for the University of Minnesota dance team two years ago. “I really prepared myself for the whole process. I knew it was going to be tough. Tryouts were a four-day process. I just knew I had to try my best and not worry about the other dancers. I knew they were all good or they wouldn’t have been there,” said Hamari, who estimated there were 70 dancers with 17 making the squad. “After four tough days of tryouts, it was really satisfying to make the team.”
DOING SOMETHING SHE LOVES For Bagley, there was no doubt in her mind she wanted to continue to dance after graduating from Chaska in 2010. Where, though, was the question? She decided on the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul – a perennial national entrant in the Open Division – a
Hamari also has coached the District 112 middle school dance the past two seasons, drawing off her experiences as a staff member for the Just For Kix summer camps. “I’m used to working with elementary kids with my major, but it’s my fi rst time with middle school kids. It’s fun to pass on the things I’ve learned. It’s a cool feeling to watch the girls grow and keep coming back and staying with the sport. It reminds me of myself when I was this age,” she said.
OTHER OPPORTUNITIES
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Chaska High School graduate Jillian Bagley competed for the national champion University of St. Thomas Dance Team this past winter. Pictured are Bagley, and her teammates Elise Kissel and Sam Maroney. decision that had to be made before the fi nal months of her high school time. “Tryouts were in May, so I had to know before then my senior year of high school was over. I didn’t make my decision on a school because of dance, but it did help that St. Thomas had a really good dance team. Dance has been a part of my life since I was three, so I knew I wanted to keep doing it,” Bagley said. St. Thomas won the UDA National College Dance Team championship in hip hop and took second place in jazz last January. This month, Bagley helped the Tommies Dance Team win the jazz national title and also place second in hip hop. St. Thomas owns four national titles in the past five seasons in the Open Division. “Defi nitely going down to Orlando, we felt a lot of pressure. It really feels like the Bring It On movie because there’s dance and cheer competitions going on,” said Bagley. To win a national title, the St. Thomas Dance Team has to put in an enormous amount of work. Bagley fi gures most weeks the squad only gets one day off from practice.
BOYS SWIM/DIVE
“It’s pretty similar to high school. I felt like we were a family and I didn’t think it would be like that with the college team, but it is. We work just as hard. We put in a lot of time,” she said. H av i n g c o mpl e t e d h e r second season with the St. Thomas dance team, Bagley hasn’t decided if she’ll be able to continue with the squad next season. Biology major, her classroom and lab time will only increase the next two years. “We only had one senior this year, but not everybody comes back each year. It gets really hard to keep up with school and dance sometimes. I think about it a lot. Whether I’ll be able to keep doing it. It’s hard to think about because it’s something I’ve done my whole life,” said Bagley, who will have to decide soon as tryouts for next year’s team are in April.
GIVING BACK TO 112 Hamari spent one season as a member of the University of Minnesota’s Division I national championship dance team. The Gophers won both the hip hop and jazz national titles in 2010. Along with local, regional
and national competitions, the U of M squad performed at football and basketball games. The 2009 Chaska graduate said the biggest difference between the high school team and her college squad was practice time. “We only practiced three days a week, but we’d have three- to three-and-a-half-hour practices. We had to focus hard to get everything done. When we got to performances, we didn’t get nervous because we had practiced so much,” said Hamari, who also said the squad worked on strength training two times a week. “We were in pretty good shape.” T he p a s t t wo s e a s o n s , Hamari, now a junior, has competed on the University of Minnesota Premier Club dance team, helping the squad win the Midwest Open Division in jazz and placing second in hip hop this year. “I wanted to do a lot more volunteering and get more outside experiences for my major. With the club team, there wasn’t the extra performances. I knew that I couldn’t give up on dance. I still wanted to be part of a team. I still got to dance a lot and that meant a lot to me,” Hamari said.
Bagley and Hamari aren’t the only former Chaska dancers still involved in the sport post-high school. Tia Bont, a 2010 graduate, competed for a season with the University of Wisconsin’s club team, the Dance Elite. Now at the University of Minnesota, Bont spent the season with Hamari on the Premier Club team. She is also an assistant junior varsity coach with Chaska after spending a year as an assistant at Lakeville North in the fall of 2010. Ashley Rollins, a 2011 graduate and freshman at Normandale Community College, has danced with the North Dakota Ballet Company, participated in a Just For Kix trip to Joplin, Miss. and is an assistant with the Chaska Dance Team. Sammi Gomez, also a 2011 g raduate, is the prog ram’s fi rst professional dancer. She performs with the downtown Minneapolis dance company Breaking Boundaries. She is a freshman at the University of Minnesota. Other alumni competing are Elizabeth Hanzlik and Caity Mattson at the College of St. Benedict; Amy and Emily Hassenstab at the Gustavus; Meghan Gerber at Minnesota State University-Mankato; Becca Porter and Brittany Ploen at Pepperdine University; and Lindsay Selinger at North Dakota State University. Lauren Fischer and Brooke Erickson also perform for the North Dakota Ballet Company, while Andrea Hammann was formerly on the U of M club team.
Don’t miss this CONFERENCE CHAMPS? Girls hockey closes out the Missota Conference season with a home game against New Prague at 2 p.m. Saturday. The Storm Hawks are closing in on its first girls conference title. A Game with Red Wing on the road Tuesday may decide the winner.
WEEKLY SCHEDULES
Chaska H.S. Web schedule: www.missotaconference.org School: www.district112.org/chs/ Hotline: (952) 556-HAWK (4295) Home basketball games at Chaska H.S. Home hockey games at Chaska C.C. Home wrestling meets at Chan HS/Chaska HS Home gymnastics meets at Chan H.S. Home swim/dive meets at Chaska M.S. East TODAY, JANUARY 26 Wrestling vs. Dassel-Cokato, 7 p.m. Girls Hockey at Mound-Westonka, 7 p.m. FRIDAY, JANUARY 27 Boys Basketball vs. Holy Angels, 7:30 p.m. Girls Basketball at Holy Angels, 7:30 p.m. Boys Hockey at New Ulm, 7:30 p.m. SATURDAY, JANUARY 28 Wrestling at Totino-Grace Invite, 9 a.m. Boys Swim/Dive at Minneapolis Southwest Invite, 11 a.m. Girls Hockey vs. New Prague, 2 p.m. Girls Basketball at Waconia, 7:30 p.m. TUESDAY, JANUARY 31 Alpine Ski at Welch Village, 5:30 p.m. Gymnastics at Northfield, 6:30 p.m. Girls Hockey at Red Wing, 7 p.m. Boys Hockey vs. Red Wing, 7:15 p.m. Girls Basketball vs. Farmington, 7:30 p.m. Boys Basketball at Shakopee, 7:30 p.m.
Southwest Christian Web schedule: www.mcaaconference.org School: www.swchs.org Home girls basketball games at Trinity Lutheran (Waconia) Home boys basketball games at Guardian Angels (Chaska) SATURDAY, JANUARY 28 Girls Basketball vs. Heritage Christian (Crown College), 2:30 p.m. Boys Basketball vs. Heritage Christian (Crown College), 4:30 p.m. TUESDAY, JANUARY 31 Boys Basketball at Maranatha Academy, 7 p.m. Girls Basketball vs. Maranatha Academy, 8 p.m.
Holy Family Catholic Web schedule: www.mnriverconference.org School: www.hfchs.org Hotline: (952) 443-HOLY (4659), ext. 1111 Home girls hockey games at Victoria and Waconia Arenas Home boys hockey games at Victoria Arena Home basketball games at HFC H.S. TODAY, JANUARY 26 Girls Basketball at Big Lake, 7:15 p.m. Boys Basketball vs. Minnehaha Academy, 7:30 p.m. FRIDAY, JANUARY 27 Boys Basketball vs. Delano, 7:30 p.m. Girls Basketball at Delano, 7:30 p.m. SATURDAY, JANUARY 28 Girls Hockey vs. Litchfield (Victoria), 3 p.m. Boys Hockey vs. Chisago Lakes, 7 p.m. TUESDAY, JANUARY 31 Boys Hockey vs. Mound-Westonka, 7 p.m. Girls Basketball vs. Shakopee, 7:30 p.m.
Chanhassen H.S.
BOYS HOCKEY
Web schedule: www.missotaconference.org School: www.district112.org/cns/ Hotline: (952) 361-CHAN (2426) Home boys hockey games at Victoria Arena Home girls hockey games at Chaska C.C. Home basketball games at Chan H.S. Home wrestling meets at Chan HS/Chaska HS Home gymnastics meets at Chan H.S. Home swim/dive meets at Chaska M.S. East
Hawks looking for first conference win
TODAY, JANUARY 26 Wrestling vs. Dassel-Cokato, 7 p.m. Girls Hockey at Mound-Westonka, 7 p.m. Boys Hockey vs. Holy Angels, 7:15 p.m.
BY ERIC KRAUSHAR scores@swpub.com
The first five minutes of Friday’s conference tilt between host Chaska and Northfield saw the Raiders get a pair of bounces and the Hawks wishing they could get one. Down 2-0 just 4:56 into the game, Chaska (3-15) battled hard the fi nal 46 minutes, but came up a goal short in a 2-1
loss to the Raiders. Chaska is 0-7 in the Missota Conference. Garrett Paulzine pulled t he H awk s w it h i n a go a l with 2:59 to play from Mitch Kirchoff and Brady Roers. Chaska, though, had on ly three shots in the fi nal period and was outshot for the game 33-27. Logan VonRuden snuck a screened point shot inside the
right pipe on the power play for the 1-0 lead for Northfield at 2:44 of the fi rst period. More than two minutes later, it was Nathan Scofeld on a rebound goal for the 2-0 lead. Blake Jackson settled in for Chaska, stopping 31 shots in the loss. Resu lts from T uesday’s game with New Prag ue is available on Scoreboard.MN.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 27 Boys Basketball vs. Red Wing, 7:30 p.m. Girls Basketball at Red Wing, 7:30 p.m. SATURDAY, JANUARY 28 Wrestling at Totino-Grace Invite, 9 a.m. Boys Swim/Dive at Minneapolis Southwest Invite, 11 a.m. Girls Hockey vs. New Prague, 2 p.m. Boys Hockey vs. Dodge County, 7:15 p.m. TUESDAY, JANUARY 31 Alpine Ski at Welch Village, 5:30 p.m. Gymnastics at Northfield, 6:30 p.m. Girls Hockey at Red Wing, 7 p.m. Boys Hockey at Northfield, 7:15 p.m. Girls Basketball at Northfield, 7:30 p.m. Boys Basketball at Farmington, 7:30 p.m.
PHOTO BY ERIC KRAUSHAR
Aaron Wuflestad swims a first-place time of 2:16.83 in the 200 individual medley during a 98-79 win over Northfield Tuesday. Chaska/Chanhassen is now 2-1 in the Missota Conference.
Storm Hawks break two pool records BY ERIC KRAUSHAR scores@swpub.com
Chaska/Chanhassen recorded its fi rst dual victory of the season, winning six of the fi rst 10 events en route to a 98-83 conference dual victory over Shakopee Jan. 19. T he Stor m H awk s outscored the Sabers in the fi rst 10 events, jumping out to a 98-58 lead before swimming in exhibition mode the fi nal two events. Connor Schrempp swam a season-best time of 1:59.60 in the 200-yard freestyle to help C/C take three of the top four spots in the event. Gu s C u r r ie ( 2 : 0 2 . 5 5 ) a nd Jonathan Andrys (2 : 08.81) placed second and fourth, respectively. T wo pool records were eclipsed at the Shakopee Middle School Pool, including a fi rst-place swim of 5:09.87 in the 500-yard freestyle from Chaska freshman Sean Donnelly. The Storm Hawks swept the event with Connor Martin
(5:19.21) and Peter Augdahl (5:41.52) rounding out the top three spots. Also winning individual events for C/C were Benny Richardson in the 200 individual medley (2:11.57) and Donnel ly in the 10 0 backstroke (1:02.16). The 200 medley relay and 200 freestyle relay also took first place in the meet. Martin, Aaron Wuflestad, Casey Bringhurst and Sam Halterman combined for a time of 1:50.87 in the medley. Halterman, Bringhurst, Ryan Howe and Aaron Brown hit the wall at 1:41.69 for a less than a second win in the 200 freestyle relay. JP Currie in the 100 breaststroke and the 400 freestyle relay of Gus and JP Currie, Donnelly and Richardson also had winning times of 1:11.46 and 3:36.03, respectively. The 400 relay’s time was also a pool record. Results from Tuesday’s meet with Northfield are available on Scoreboard.MN.
SPORTS BRIEFS
Pluth among Top 50 Kids Golf Teachers Bradley Pluth of Chanhassen is among the class of the Top 50 Kids Teachers for 2011, as announced by U.S. Kids Golf. Pluth has been a junior golf instructor for 14 years and is a PGA Certified Director of Instruction at Halla Green Golf and Practice Center. This is the second time that he has been named a Top 50 Kids Teacher by U.S. Kids Golf. “I am honored to join this elite group of professionals,” Pluth said. “This is truly a team effort that I proudly share with my staff and partners that I have throughout Minnesota and throughout the country.” The award, in its eighth year, recognizes golf professionals across North America who focus much of their time and energy on developing young golfers in their communities. The instructors are judged on several criteria, including percentage of time devoted to kids programs, creativity, communication and efforts to grow the game. This year’s class represents 25 states and Canada and includes teachers who work at public, private, resort and municipal courses. “The Top 50 Kids Teachers represent a group of profession-
als who are dedicated to helping kids develop their skills and their love of the game,” said Dan Van Horn, founder and president of U.S. Kids Golf. “We are pleased to recognize their talents and commitment.” The 2011 Top 50 Kids Teachers will be recognized Friday, Jan. 27, at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.
Event planned for Chaska boys hockey On Tuesday, Jan. 31, the Chaska boys hockey team is holding “Black-out night” at the Chaska boys’ varsity game. Wear black with free glow sticks to be handed out. Game time is 7:15 p.m.
Gersich competes for Team USA in Austria Team USA, which featured Chaska native and Holy Family Catholic freshman Shane Gersich, fi nished fourth at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Saturday in Innsbruck, Austria with a 2-4 record. Gersich scored three goals to lead the U.S. Youth Olympic Boys Ice Hockey Team to a 7-2 victory over Austria in its opening game Jan. 14. USA dropped a 5-1 decision to Canada on Jan. 15.
The national team beat eventual champions Finland 4-3 on Jan. 18, in which Gersich had an assist, before USA lost 7-1 to Russia on Jan. 19. Russia, the No. 1 seed after the preliminary round, topped USA again Jan. 20 5-2 in the semifi nal round. Canada took down USA 7-5 in the third-place game on Saturday. Gersich was one of two players from Minnesota along with defenseman Jack Glover from Benilde-St. Margaret.
four-year $1,000 scholarship. The other nominees were: Jackie Schneider, Rachel Vipond, Aimee Junget, Kylie Seiffert, Emily Olson, Kirstin Augdahl, Sarah Wagman, Dan Drill-Mellum, Ryan Spencer, Alex Logan, and Dan Esping. The winners were selected by head coaches, and advisors of activities and fi ne arts.
Two selected as Triple ‘A’ winners
Do you have a youth interested in playing volleyball? Registration is now open for the Chanhassen Club Volleyball Youth Development Program. This is a new program being offered by Chanhassen Club Volleyball for girls in ages 9-12 interested in learning more about the sport of volleyball. This program will be geared toward developing young volleyball players’ skills through repetitive drills and games as well as growing an understanding and knowledge base for the game. This program is six sessions on Sunday evenings, beginning Feb. 12 at the Chanhassen High School Main Gym. Space is limited. For more information and to register online please visit: http:// chanathleticassociationvolleyball.assn.la.
Chaska seniors Jake Connealy and Lauren Aase were selected as the Chaska High School Triple ‘A’ Award (Athletics –Arts –Academics) recipients for the 2011-12 school year. The Triple ‘A’ program was created in 1988 to recognize high school students who excel in the arts, athletics and the classroom. Seniors who have a “B” or higher grade point average and who participate in League-sponsored athletic and fi ne arts activities are eligible for nomination. Nominations are limited to two qualifying students per school – one male and one female. Triple ‘A’ State Award recipients (four total) will receive a
Volleyball club offers development camp