Huntley dance coach Chrissy Amling figured the risk of performing a hip-hop routine at the IHSA Dance State Meet was worth it.

Amling was right.

Huntley jumped almost two points from Friday’s preliminary qualifying, scoring 93.04 in Saturday’s finals to take second place in Class 3A at the U.S. Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington.

Stevenson won the 3A title with 93.86. Huntley took second in its first trip to the 12-team finals.

“We knew hip hop wasn’t a top-scoring routine for everybody,” said Amling, whose team advanced to state in six of the seven years she has been coach. “But we stuck with our guns and worked really hard. We wanted to be different, so that’s what we picked this year. That was our baby, what we were passionate about. We just went out and gave it everything we got and nailed it. I couldn’t have asked for a better performance.”

Cary-Grove was the other local school sending a team to Saturday’s finals. C-G placed 12th in Class 2A.

Amling said Huntley had tryouts and brought in a choreographer in the summer, then put its routine together in October. Huntley performed a contemporary routine at state last year.

“From October on we were working super-hard,” she said. “I call this my dream team, they did everything I asked and more.”

Lauren Apa, Huntley’s captain, had a difficult time describing the moment.

“We were absolutely speechless,” said Apa, a four-year varsity performer. “We’re so happy right now. We were able to make an impression with hip hop because of all the talent that this team brings.”

Five other local teams qualified for state but didn not advance past Friday’s preliminaries. Crystal Lake Central was 13th, Crystal Lake South was 15th and Prairie Ridge was 25th in 2A. Jacobs was 14th in 3A, and Johnsburg took 17th in 1A.