photo courtesy of Kiara Cruz
On April 30, the Union County All Stars Step Team won The National Step Team Competition held at Six Flags.
Each year, the New Jersey State Step Association encourages teams from all over N.J. to participate in The Six Flags Invitational. This year, the Blue Diamonds Step Team joined forces with the step team of Summit High School to create the Union County All Stars Step Team. This was the first time the teams collaborated and impressively, they won first place.
The members from each team who wanted to participate in the competition had to try out first; only 15 spots were available.
Junior Kiara Cruz and co-captain of the Blue Diamonds Step Team made it on the competition team.
“Overall, the team’s dynamic was really supportive and really positive.,” said Cruz. “We all worked together to create steps and come up with the idea of a S.W.A.T. theme regarding this crime case we had to solve and it was really creative.”
Through late nights of intensive practices, the Union County All Stars Step Team came out as the underdog. Their first place prize was $3,000, which the two schools split evenly.
“We do plan on doing this again next year,” said Cruz. “[We will] hopefully have a new team next year with new members, such as the incoming freshmen and see how tryouts go.”
Recently, the team was recognized at the Student Recognition Night, hosted by the Board of Education. Their coach, Tashira Wheeler, gave kind words on their accomplishments and presented them with their awards.
Until next year, keep stepping Blue