It ended as it should.
No, the Yellow Medicine East Silhouettes fourteenth straight State appearance did not end with draped medals or triumphant trophies as most great stories might. And it would not end with tears, either, though some may have been shed on the way. No, instead the Silhouettes’ trip to State would end with an impromptu pile of giggling girls hastily posing for a photo which captured all the goodness that is possible in sport.
Yellow Medicine East and Montevideo had been each other’s biggest fans over the weekend. They had been rivals just a week before as they faced off at Sections. But this weekend coaches and tournament officials said they had never seen anything like it as the Gold Dusters cheered on the Silhouettes through their High Kick routine as if they were different halves of the same team. Then after the Silhouettes had walked from the floor and as Montevideo filed on they returned the favor.
“We danced back-to-back in both the prelims and the finals,” said co-head coach Chris Nerdahl. “So while we danced, Monte was in the chute screaming and yelling for us and then after we got off the floor our girls were screaming and yelling their heads off for them. I haven’t seen anything like that before...During the award ceremony (a competition official) came up to me and said, ‘The one thing I’ll remember about this weekend was how you and Monte cheered for each other’.”
It may have been those cheers which lifted the Silhouettes to their cleanest High Kick performance of the season. And those cheers might have been part of the reason why the young Silhouettes, a team whose roster is half composed by girls still in junior high, walked from the floor and to the awards ceremony proud of what they had accomplished and virtually unconcerned by placings and medals.
“They fought for every performance this year,” said Nerdahl. “With having such a young team this year (14 out of 28 dancers are in grades seven through nine) it just took them a little while to get into the swing of things. I think that’s why when they danced that High Kick routine so flawlessly in finals they were just so excited that they had nailed the dance that they really didn’t seem to care how they placed. I know they would have loved to medal, but deep down I don’t think they were that upset about it. They knew they had danced well and that they did everything that they could. At that point whatever happens—happens.”
