FARMINGTON—It was a tough season for the Farmington High School drill team leading up to the State 6A Championship with injuries and other setbacks but all the hard work paid off when the Nixelles swept the competition Jan. 31 in Military, Show and Dance. The team even pulled off last minute changes to one of the routines but still came out shining.  

“We have 32 dancers and half of our team is new this year,” said Head Coach Marci Hartvigsen. “It’s kind of been a fun topic for other teams thinking that Farmington wouldn’t be as strong as usual. We’ve really had to work extra hard with that many new dancers and from day one we’ve been sprinting.”

Sprinting to get these kids ready for state, she said. “In earlier competitions we had a bunch of setbacks. We had injuries, one of which was my own daughter, like torn ligaments and kids being taken out of routines.”

It was just nonstop struggles with the season, said Hartvigsen. “We were having to redo, re-space and spend time on top of having a new team.”

The kids had to be on point all the time, she said. “So ultimately our team just has been like no other team we’ve had in our eight years of coaching. We have so many new dancers and they’re just not as experienced.”

But at the end of the day it didn’t really matter, Hartvigsen said. “What mattered is that they never stopped working. They never stopped trying to be their best. We’re just really happy that they got the reward at the end of the win.”

Hartvigsen said they felt rewarded anyway. “Honestly when we came off after the show at that point when you've done your best and you feel like the team has just reached their very best you almost don’t care in a sense what the judges decide. That’s where we were.”

So it was amazing, she said. “It was definitely my hardest year. When you have an injury, as a mother it’s devastating for your child and you but when you're the coach it was like triple devastation so it was really hard.”

There are three routines at state, said Hartvigsen. “We do Military which we hit hard early on because again we had new dancers. With Military the kids do not do that style of dance until they get to drill. It’s just not the drill style that you’re doing in a studio growing up. So we really hit that one hard out the gate, knowing that if we couldn’t do well in Military it was going to really affect placement at state.”

After taking third place at Region Hartvigsen said they were all wondering what was going on. “We’d been doing so well. After the semi where we didn’t place first in Show I just kind of snapped and decided ‘you know what? We need to change choreography in Show to make it more readable and cleaner and make sure that it can places well.’”

That was Thursday night before state, she said. “We redid multiple sections of that dance. It was taking a really big risk. I was thinking, ‘am I doing the right thing? Is it the right call?’ I knew it was do or die and it was like let’s risk it because if we don’t that could be the difference.”

So they did, said Hartvigsen. “That really pushed the dancers. It was more mental for Show than it has ever been. We had two practice periods from the time I reset this. The practice I reset it in and the next day Friday.”

Not one person forgot those changes, she said. “It was just amazing. I do think the path that we were led down just with disappointments throughout the season with injury and also prelim competitions being placed – maybe not in line – with what we thought we would place.”

It’s very subjective, said Hartvigsen. “Sometimes you don’t fully agree with what’s happening but that’s the dance world. We decided we’re just going to do what we know. Farmington is going to try and beat Farmington.” 

Then to get a clean sweep was shocking for everybody, she said. “That was the most rewarding part, that we were able to do that with all of the things that were happening and different judges thinking that we weren’t as good as the next team, you know that plays into your psyche.”

All those things needed to happen for the team to end up where it did, said Hartvigsen. “We told the kids it’s part of the journey and we still have to do our best. The lessons that were learned by our team this year – they will take with them for the rest of their lives.”