The Silver Stars dance team welcomed assistant coach Kaitlyn McAfee as a new addition to this year’s football and competition season.

Before Mill Valley, McAfee was an instructor for the Universal Dance Association (UDA), then coached at her high school alma mater, which last year placed in the top five at the Indiana state level. Alongside her position here, she continues to judge regional and national dance competitions.

McAfee holds high expectations for the school’s top-ranked team, and strives to help the Silver Stars improve.

“Apparently, I’m a little bit tougher on them than before,” McAfee said. “I think I hold them accountable to a higher standard.”

Junior Silver Star Emma Barge believes that McAfee’s arrival has enhanced the team’s skill not only in technical work, but in diligence as well.

“Practices are a lot different in the sense that I think we’re a lot more focused than we were last year; we’re all in it to win it,” Barge said.

According to senior Silver Star Paige Habiger, the shared sense of hard work motivates the team to constantly improve.

“I think [McAfee] really really wants us to get better,” Habiger said. “She’s really pushing us hard. She’s tough, and I think that’s good for us.”

McAfee’s schedule comprised of work, dance practice and a newborn baby can be time-consuming, but dancers said she appears to manage her time well.

“Sometimes she’ll have to bring [the baby] to practice,” Barge said, “but she focuses all her time on us even when he’s there. I appreciate how she works it all out for us.”

Finishing up football season, the team continues to prepare for their first competition, the KC Classic, on Saturday, Dec. 10 at Liberty High School. McAfee believes the team will do well, but looks forward to seeing even more growth.

“They’re very talented,” McAfee said, “so I like to push them to that level and increase the productivity at practice than what they’re used to.”

Specifically, McAfee would like to improve on hip hop tricks and pom routines before competition season begins, since these are the team’s weaknesses. Overall, however, she believes the Silver Stars can boost their ratings by putting more passion into the routines.

“Not knowing what they did before, what I can see myself being the biggest asset in [is improving] their execution scores,” McAfee said. “That’s their group execution: how they’re performing together, their showmanship and their energy level.”

In the last three years, the Silver Stars have consistently placed first at the KC Classic. They plan to uphold that title this year, and will do so by solidifying difficult moves over the next few months.

“We have harder dances this year, so we have harder turn sequences and we do four pirouettes instead of three,” Barge said. “We’re always striving to get better and be able to make our dances harder, so that way we show up and ‘wow’ everyone.”

The ambition to impress crowds seems to be a common theme among dancers and coaches alike, so with this high expectation, senior team members are stepping up to improve the team’s general ability.

“We want to go in and get some first place trophies, definitely,” Habiger said. “We need to work on our cleanliness, sharpness and motions in pom. That’s really what we struggle with.”

As a rule put forth by coaches last October, dance members are required to demonstrate time put in outside of practice by submitting videos of harder moves.

“We’re required to send videos every night of us doing four pirouettes, a kip-up and a headspring,” Barge said. “Once you’ve shown that you can hit it solid, just the way our coaches want, then they tell us we don’t have to send those videos anymore. That definitely makes us better.”

Through practice and outside dance classes, the team has their work cut out for them, but McAfee believes the team will succeed like always.

“They can do anything as long as they put the effort into it,” McAfee said. “ [That includes] really pushing themselves and not letting them ever lose that energy level.”