Creston teams excel at state dance and drill

DES MOINES — Creston is no stranger to excelling in the arts as the school has an abundance of state titles in both winterguard and dance. This year was no different as CHS brought home gold and silver trophies from the Iowa Dance and Drill State Championships las week at the Wells Fargo Arena.

Winterguard

Last season, the Creston Winterguard placed in the top 100 high school teams at Nationals in Dayton, Ohio. This year they extended their state championships to four in a row as their routine “Nightmares” topped all other Class II routines.

“We don’t have a lot of time coming off of marching band seaason and the musical,” coach Lisa Peters said. “We have about a window of three weeks to get ready for this. It’s a short time period, it’s stressful and hectic to find times to get together and practice.”

Their 92.25 score was second in all classes of guard routines to only Dubuque Senior, scoring a 92.75.

“I was so proud of them,” Peters said. “Competition was very very tough this year. Watching the other groups, I didn’t know where we would place. North Polk, Glenwood and Oskaloosa I was very impressed with.”

In the solo guard competition, the Panthers swept Class I. Alyssa Gerdes became Creston’s fifth sequential individual state champion.

“That was amazing,” Peters said. “I really didn’t know if the judges would do it that way, but it is how it fell. I didn’t know who would be called. The solos were beautiful and a ll very different.”

Taking silver and bronze were Abby Collin and Gracelyn Spencer, respectively. Violet Marcus earned sixth to put four Panthers in the top 10 of Class I.

Dance

Creston was well represented in the dance portion of the state championships with performances from the Creston Peppers, Salts and Peppers, Southwestern Dazzlers and CHS alumnus Emma Pantini with the University of Northern Iowa.

The Peppers went to defend their state title in the lights division, but a heartbreaking 91 - 90.75 loss to East Sac County earned the Peppers a silver trophy.

The Salts and Peppers competed in the Class I Co-ed division where they took second place in a nerdy-themed routine. North Mahaska earned the win in co-ed.

“I’m very proud of the Peppers and their Salts,” dance coach Melisa Crook said in a Facebook post. “Two runner-up placements is great. The lights division was challenging this year, but I thought we executed well. They came a long way in a short amount of time.”

The Southwestern Community College Dazzlers brought pop, hip hop and jazz routines to the community college division.

Their hip hop routine placed highest, taking third behind Iowa Central and Iowa Western. Their jazz routine earned fourth and poms took fifth.

Pending fundraising, the Dazzlers will be returning to the national competition in Orlando, Florida in February.

Pantini, a 2023 Creston graduate completed on the Division I NCAA stage with the UNI Panthers. The team competed in both pom and jazz where they took silver in both categories behind the University of Iowa.