CINCINNATI, Ohio— The Seton High School Dance Team in Cincinnati has done something they’ve never done before, and now the whole school is celebrating. They’re celebrating after winning their first-ever varsity hip hop national championship at Disney over the weekend.
- Seton came in second place last year in the same category
- Many of the girls have been dancing with Seton for over half their life
- The school celebrated the team with a pep rally
Sunday night, these ladies were celebrating the victory of their lives
“All the seniors were just holding hands and crying to each other,” Alayna Steffen, a senior dancer, said. “We were just so proud of our girls, and we knew every single person on the team deserved that. And we were so happy to see all that get rewarded.”
“You don’t know what to feel because most of the girls are crying and they’re screaming, and they’re happy, and they’re like did they call our name?” senior dancer Abby Brunner said. “I heard girls behind me like ‘did they actually say our name?’ And we’re like ‘yeah, they did!’”
But it wasn’t easy getting to that point. This year, Seton changed categories and were competing against totally new teams.
“They did so good and to watch them be so proud of themselves and be so happy with their performance, we knew they did the best that they could do,” Head Coach Jill Lamey said. “I think they knew it too. And we literally walked off the floor, and everyone felt like okay, whatever happens, happens.”
On top of that, the time commitment to the team causes many of the girls to sacrifice time doing almost anything else.
“You give up a lot of time with your friends, a lot of time with your family,” Steffen said. “But you find the right people, and they respect that this is something you love more than anything, and it’s all worth it in the end.”
The team returned back to school Wednesday morning to an auditorium full of classmates cheering them on.
“Everybody’s just so supportive,” Lamey said. “It makes it easy to go out there and represent them.”
For the seniors on the team, it’s bittersweet to leave, but they’re glad to see their work pay off.
“All ten years at Seton have been amazing,” Steffen said. “They’ve helped me grow up, they’ve watched me grow up. There’s really no program like Seton Dance across the country, and it shows with our national titles, that there’s no team like our team. “
“To see it all pay off in that type of a way, it’s the icing on top of the cake,” Lamey said.