On Sunday Nov 8, the Howell Varsity Pompon team will be competing in the statewide annual High Kick competition in Saginaw, Michigan.

“This year there’s a lot of face-paced, hard practices, but all the girls put in 100% effort,” Coach Shelly Starr says.

Mid American Pompon set the rules for High Kick. The teams that perform include middle school, JV, varsity, and collegiate teams. The competition is split up into different divisions depending on the amount of members. The small varsity division consists of 8 to 14 team members, medium consists of 15 to 19 members, and the large varsity division consists of 19 or more members. It is asked that each competing team has a minimum of 40 kicks within a time limit of 3 minutes and 30 seconds, along with themed choreography. In a regular pom routine, there’s a kickline and the rest is just pom.

“Every year the team gets to vote on our High Kick theme. This year we’re trying a theme that we’ve never done before so I’m pretty excited about that,” senior captain Brittney Coan says.

The last few themes the team has done include leprechauns, the Chiquita banana lady, and Wonder Woman. The theme is always kept a secret until it’s actually performed, that way everyone is in for a surprise.

For the past several years, the team has won in all divisions – small, medium and large varsity. In 2012, they had the highest score of the day and won their division. In 2014 they came in 1st place in the medium varsity division and last year they took second with large.

“It makes me kind of nervous to do well at competition, just because the standards were set so high from the team doing so well last year,” freshman Kara Brown says. “This year the team is smaller so we’ll be competing in medium division so it might be harder. We’ll probably have the most trouble on our formations.”

The practices have a sense of unity and it is evident that the team works together to accomplish a common goal: success.

“The team truly does have great work ethic and they’re all constantly supporting each other,” Coach Starr says. “Sometimes I think the hardest part is just to keep our energy up and stay motivated.”