Nathan Bullen
When N.C. State left Raleigh on April 4 for the National Dance Alliance’s Collegiate Championships in Daytona Beach, Fla., senior Leigh Justice said she thought her team might win a national title.
A week later, Justice and the Wolfpack aren’t as optimistic. With scores of 8.68 and 8.81 in the preliminary and final rounds, respectively, State finished 10th in the competition of 20 teams.
“Our overall routine, we felt, deserved better,” Justice said. “Other teams were coming up to us and telling us how much more they thought we deserved than what we got.”
Louisville and Brigham Young tied to win the competition. North Carolina, with a score of 9.05 in the final round, finished fourth overall.
What sticks most for the team is that one of the judge’s score sheets was void of any comments. According to Justice, it’s protocol for a judge to leave comments about why she scored the team the way she did.
“If you’re going to score someone low, you should have a reason, right? We really wanted to look at our score sheets to look at what we needed to improve on,” Justice said. “We wanted to know what we needed to do differently for next year.”
And perhaps the team’s protest is justified. According to Justice, members of the Clemson team went as far as to suggest the Pack should have placed higher than the Tigers. Clemson finished sixth, with a score of 8.92 in the final round.
“Other dancers who have been dancing their whole lives were saying we did well. It didn’t make sense. It was frustrating when we found out how poorly we did.”
Justice added the team has no plans of appealing or challenging the blank score sheet. While the seniors are finished with their dance careers at State, Justice said the returning members will be at events like Saturday’s spring football game and select baseball games at Doak Field.