IHSA State Competitive Dance: Lincoln-Way West, Morris claim runner-up spots at state

Both the Lincoln-Way West and Morris competitive dance teams earned runner-up trophies at the IHSA State Competitive Dance competition in Bloomington on Saturday.

In the Class 2A event, Lincoln-Way West posted a score of 94.12 easily outdistancing all of the teams in the field but one. Lake Forest earned the state title with a score of 98.02, the highest total in the competition regardless of class.

Morris took second in Class 1A with a score of 89.96, less than a point behind the state championship effort put forth by Jacksonville (90.7).

Joliet Catholic and Providence also finished in the top five in Class 1A. Joliet Catholic’s 89.01 was just short of the third place hardware achieved by Carmel (89.44). Providence was also right in the hunt, finishing fifth with an 88.52.

After Friday’s preliminaries, The Class 1A leaderboard after the preliminaries was full of local squads. Joliet Catholic turned in the top score in the prelim with a mark of 90.4 and just behind in second was Morris with a score of 89.8. In fourth place was Providence at 88.48.

Gardner-South Wilmington did not qualify for the finals, finishing 28th with a score of 72.24.

The Class 2A preliminaries saw both local squads advance with Lincoln-Way West recording the fourth best score of 93.26 and Lincoln-Way Central was ninth with a score of 88.58.

In Class 3A, no local squads advanced to the finals.

Plainfield North finished 14th among qualifying teams (the top 12 teams in each classification reached Saturday’s finals) with a score of 83.92, while Minooka was just behind them in 15th place with a qualifying score of 83.58.

Other locals that advanced to the finals were Plainfield Central (25th place, 79.30 score), Joliet West (28th, 76.94) and Plainfield East (30th, 76.58).