On Saturday, Jan. 6, the Walter Johnson Poms team competed in their first invitational of the season at Springbrook High School and placed fourth. The invitational marked the start of the Poms winter season, and things are looking very promising. This is their first meet since being moved up to Division One, and the team showed they deserved to be there.

“I thought we did the best we’ve done all season, and I cannot wait to see how we do by counties!” senior captain Alexa Steinberg said.

The Poms team was 0.2 points behind 3rd place out of a total of 100 possible points. They were incredibly close to getting their first trophy of the school year. It was clear from their performance that Poms works hard during practice and has great chemistry.

“The whole team danced together and worked as a team very well. Every team that was there did very well and D1 is very competitive,” Steinberg said.

The entire team was really proud of their performance and fed off the energy of their teammates. The pressure of being on a bigger stage seemed to make them perform even better.

“The team had more energy than we’ve seen in other years and overall we’re just really proud of how we did,” sophomore Lottie Austegard said.

The team danced to a variety of 90s mashups and remixes for the pom section of the routine. There were some great spotlights throughout the routine, including a particularly impressive spotlight from the talented freshman Henry Stokes.

“Henry did so well for his competition and he had a lot of solo moments,” Austegard said.

Although Stokes has a background in competitive dance, this was his first competition with the WJ Poms team, and the team thinks he is a great addition to the squad.

Nevertheless, Captain Steinberg did have a few notes about future competitions and improvements.

“We really need to work on keeping our energy and precision throughout the entire routine, but I’m so excited for the rest of the season and I couldn’t ask for a harder working team,” Steinberg said.

Counties are coming up on Feb. 3, and the Poms are working tirelessly for the competition.