The Purrfections are ready and pumped for Nationals Dance Competition to be held at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports this weekend. The team has never before attended event.

“I have always wanted to take my team to nationals but it was always to expensive, and we didn’t think it was worth our money because we were never prepared enough,” Coach April Shaw said. “This year I saw more talent in the team than I ever had in the past eight years. That is why we decided as a group to go the extra mile and do what we had to do in order to be ready for nationals.”

Nationals will cost approximately $500 per dancer and chaperone to attend.

“In order to raise the amount of money we needed, we had to fund raise more than double the amount we ever have had to do in the past,” senior Ashley Norris said. “As a team we had to raise $8,000 for 15 dancers and two chaperones. It was a lot of hard work but we did it, and I know the experience we are going to have as a team at nationals will  make it all worth it.”

The dancers also had to schedule many extra practices and stay later on normal practice days.

“This year we had a professional choreographer come in and help clean our routine to make it nationals ready,” captain Mattie Shaw said. “By doing this we had to attend weekend practices almost every week. I know it was very time-consuming, but it only made us better. The team and I couldn’t feel more ready.”

By Jessie Shaw