Lake Oswego High School dance and drill team shines with two-year, two-title streak at state

What is it called when a team wins two state championships two years in a row? A double back-to-back?

For the Lake Oswego High School dance and drill team and its eight graduating seniors, it was just another trip to the OSAA State Dance & Drill Championship in Salem. This year’s championship was held March 14-16.

LOHS’s Laker Dance team took home first place for 6A high schools in both the Pom and Jazz categories on Friday, March 15. This is the second year that LOHS has dominated two categories at state and the fifth title in three years for the Laker Dance seniors.

“Something I’m really proud of is the atmosphere and culture that we have here at Laker Dance. I lead with kindness, I lead with love, I lead with encouragement and then I also like to keep the bar really high. By putting all that together, these kids flourish because they know they can be in a culture that's supportive of them in their journey,” said head coach Hayley DuLong.

DuLong added that she is incredibly grateful for the resilience of her senior dancers who went through almost two disrupted seasons because of the pandemic.

“Having to go through that really instilled how important every moment is – to soak in all the things that they couldn’t experience their first year,” said DuLong. “All eight of my seniors are such wonderful, kind, loving, passionate dancers and humans. They honestly brought the team up another level in terms of commitment, dedication and grit. I’m going to miss them, they had so much faith in our team.”

A sports “relative” of cheerleading and gymnastics, dance and drill is scored by a panel of judges that varies from category to category. Lake Oswego has consistently scored very well in the Hip-Hop, Pom and Jazz categories.

Last December, Laker Dance was awarded first place in Jazz and Hip-Hop at the Dance Drill Coaches Association of Oregon competition. The team also traveled to Orlando, Florida in January to compete at the national level in Dance Team Union where it placed fifth nationally in Pom and eighth in Hip-Hop.

“(It takes) hours and hours and hours of time to perfect something that will only be seen by the majority of people for two minutes. That’s pretty remarkable. We’re a sport that puts so much time into a moment,” DuLong said.