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The Mokena Messenger 021617
The Mokena Messenger 021617
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50 | February 16, 2017 | The Mokena Messenger SPORTS<br />
mokenamessenger.com<br />
Competitive Dance<br />
Celtics dancers improve at state in transition year<br />
James Sanchez<br />
Contributing Editor<br />
First-year Providence head<br />
dance coach Stephanie Coglianese<br />
admitted she had to<br />
tone down her coaching style<br />
and be patient.<br />
After spending five years<br />
coaching 18- to 22-year-olds<br />
for Calumet College of St.<br />
Joseph’s dance team, she<br />
moved on to coaching incoming<br />
freshmen to seniors<br />
at Providence to be closer to<br />
her husband, Mark, who is<br />
the school’s varsity football<br />
head coach.<br />
With no junior varsity<br />
team, 10 of the 17 Celtics<br />
were freshmen or sophomores.<br />
“I had to step back and<br />
think, ‘how does a 14-yearold<br />
take on corrections as<br />
opposed to a 22-year-old?’”<br />
Coglianese recalled. “I had<br />
put myself back in high<br />
school shoes to coach down<br />
at that level.”<br />
As much as that was an<br />
adjustment for her, the girls<br />
had to do their own. Since<br />
the IHSA included competitive<br />
dance as a sanctioned<br />
sport five years ago,<br />
the Celtics have performed<br />
traditional poms routines.<br />
Coglianese shifted from<br />
that hard-hitting style into a<br />
lyrical, contemporary base<br />
where it was more fluid and<br />
dramatic.<br />
Coglianese said the seniors<br />
seemingly had the toughest<br />
transition after spending<br />
three years doing poms but<br />
began to grasp the new routine<br />
after a month, along with<br />
the rest of the team. It danced<br />
to a remixed rendition of<br />
“California Dreamin’” by<br />
The Mamas & The Papas.<br />
A first-place finish in November<br />
during the team’s<br />
regular season debut at an<br />
Andrew competition set the<br />
tone for what eventually became<br />
a successful season.<br />
“This was the most technically<br />
difficult routine we’ve<br />
had so far at Providence,”<br />
Coglianese said. “It’s a different<br />
ballgame for them,<br />
and they did well, despite<br />
switching genres, which<br />
meant different styles, techniques,<br />
and doing all this<br />
with a new coach.”<br />
The Celtics later placed<br />
second in the Chicago Catholic<br />
League’s inaugural dance<br />
competition, finishing behind<br />
Class 3A school Loyola<br />
Academy. A week later, they<br />
took third at the Class 2A<br />
Mahomet Sectional to advance<br />
to state where they finished<br />
21st out of 30 schools<br />
with a score of 82.74. They<br />
failed to advance to Day 2,<br />
but the outcome was still an<br />
improvement from last season’s<br />
appearance.<br />
“This is our third year<br />
moving up to 2A, dealing<br />
with the big dogs, and this<br />
year, we did score five points<br />
higher than last year and<br />
went five placements up, so<br />
I’m very pleased with that<br />
finish,” she said. “Obviously<br />
being a first-year coach, you<br />
want to improve the program<br />
as much as you can.”<br />
The Celtics’ best finish at<br />
state was third in Class 1A in<br />
2014. They didn’t advance<br />
the following year in their<br />
2A debut but have made it<br />
back-to-back years since<br />
then. Moving forward, Coglianese<br />
expects that winning<br />
culture to continue. She<br />
will only lose four seniors to<br />
graduation this year.<br />
Coglianese said she has<br />
a team full of technicallydriven,<br />
coachable girls, and<br />
that’s going to help when<br />
she plans a harder, more innovative<br />
routine next year.<br />
Looking back, she added<br />
those characteristics made<br />
her transition to Providence<br />
much easier.<br />
“They were 100 percent<br />
respectful of new coaching<br />
and new coaching styles,”<br />
Coglianese said. “Being a<br />
new coach, you could see a<br />
lot resistance from a lot of<br />
high school girls, but all my<br />
girls embraced everything<br />
that I have brought. I could<br />
not have asked for a better<br />
first year with the girls.”<br />
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Members of the Providence dance team perform their routine Jan. 27 during the IHSA state dance competition’s<br />
preliminary round in Bloomington. Clark Brooks/PhotoNews Media