Rockin’ Raiderettes

You see the Raiderettes on the field almost every Friday night in the fall for football, but there’s a lot more that goes into being a member besides dancing under the Friday night lights. 

The Raiderettes won several awards at a dance competition three weeks ago at Centennial High School. 

Among the team awards, they received Best in Class for all three routines and Grand Champion plus second-runner up Overall Grand Champion. Raiderettes coach Regan Cameron feels all the hard work paid off at the competition. 

“They’re all really sweet girls, and we get along really well,” Cameron said. “ I feel very successful after (last month) and it just makes me really proud, so it’s going really great.” 

Captain Delaney Hale won first in her solo and trio dances at competition. Senior Lieutenant Colesie Taylor won second runner up for the senior solo division and first in her trio. The whole team took home first runner up for the whole competition. 

“I feel like it went really well, everybody performed to the best of their abilities, and we took home a win so that’s good,” Taylor said. 

Cameron faced many problems this year, one being only having eight girls on her team. Usually, there’s about twice as many. 

“That was a pretty big obstacle and trying to create visually appealing routines and trying to get everybody to dance on the same level,” Cameron said. 

Hale has loved having Cameron as her new coach this year. 

“She’s very sweet and I’m glad she’s here my senior year,” Hale said. 

Taylor feels if anyone is thinking about trying, not just for Raiderettes but anything general, they should just go for it and you’ll find your spot where you belong. 

“I joined the Raiderettes going into my junior year, and it has honestly been the best experience of high school, just being involved in something and doing something that I love,” Taylor said.

Taylor has gained a lot of responsibility joining the team. 

“It’s been really productive and I’m just happy with how far our team has come,” Taylor said.

Preparation for the 2022-2023 school year starts the first week of April. April 4-7 will be a clinic after school in the Rider dance studio from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Then the tryout itself will be Friday, April 8 at 3:30 p.m. 

“I am absolutely looking forward to next year and seeing what kind of new team we have, how big we can make it, and what kind of girls we get together,” Cameron said. “We are losing half of our team this year because they are graduating, so we will have a lot of new members. I’m really excited to see what we get.”