The Mercy Varsity Pompon team recently was named the Mid American Grand Champs at the Mid American Dance Camp.

During the camp, the teams essentially competed against themselves, rather than each other because the camp is focused on team improvement, so multiple teams can earn the Grand Champ title.

Over the course of the four-day camp, held at Davenport University, the teams learned four new dances — one each day. Each night the teams performed the newly learned dance and were ranked based on the points they earned for the performance. Additionally, each day, the teams had to learn four eight-counts of a kickline, and perform it. Each day they added to the previous days kickline to make one large kickline that was 12 eight counts long. On the last day of camp, the teams performed an original routine which was also scored.

“It is a lot of work and is extremely tiring,” said sophomore Grace O’Dea, a member of the Mercy Pompon team. “By the end of each day, I was always sore.”

Teams who accumulated the most points over the course of the camp were named Grand Champs.

“We definitely knew we could [be Grand Champs] with hard work,” said O’Dea. “Everyone picked up the choreography really quickly and tried their best, which definitely contributed to our success.

“After all of our work, it felt very rewarding to see all the work we put in pay off,” she added.