Meet the Fruita Monument HS poms dance team
FRUITA, Colo. — The Fruita Monument High School Poms Dance team has been winning local, state and national awards for years. Coach Kerri Bensley is in her 11th year and began coaching in 2012 when her daughters were both on the team: Kayla was a senior and Jaelyn was a freshman. Kerri brought years of both coaching dance and gymnastics and says she 鈥渢hought it would be fun!鈥� She continued coaching after both of her daughters graduated because of her love for the team and her passion for the sport. Kerri says, 鈥渋t brings me joy to see these young ladies do what they love.鈥�
Highlights from this season included when the team hit their very best routine at the CHSAA State Competition, qualifying to Finals and then hitting an even stronger routine at finals placing 4th in the state! Another highlight was watching the team perform their home routine for the very first time at NDA Camp in the Summer.聽
Unlike other sports, dancing can look easy and effortless. But these athletes put in hours of practice each week. Typical practices consist of strength and flexibility, learning choreography and then they clean the dance for upcoming performance. Kerri says, 鈥渨e go through each count of the dance to make sure everyone is the same.Then we run the dance full out and take a video. The dancers have homework, to watch the video and give a critique on their performance. Dancing at this level requires a high level of fitness, strength and flexibility, as well as time commitment.鈥�
Kerri鈥檚 main goal for this program is for dancers to learn life values such as work ethic, team work, encouraging others, goal setting and gain life long friendships. She also is very competitive and loves to see them hit an amazing performance or place well at a competition.聽
This year the Poms team won 1st place in Hip Hop and Dance Grand Champion at Regionals. At the State competition, they made it to Finals and placed 4th out of 23 hip hop teams.
Some of these athletes have even gone beyond high school dancing to perform professionally.聽 Kerri鈥檚 daughter, Jaelyn Bensley, is a current Denver Broncos Cheerleader. After dancing for FMHS for 4 years, she went to Colorado State University and danced on the Golden Poms Team. She also danced professionally for the Denver Outlaws Lacrosse.聽
Looking back at the past decade, Kerri is most proud of the amazing women they have become. She says, 鈥渋t has been incredible to see what they have gone on to do in life, whether it be college, professional careers or getting married and starting a family. I feel like the lessons they learned from dance have helped shape them into amazing adults, who contribute so much to their communities.鈥�
Fruita residents can enjoy Pom performances at local football and basketball games.聽 They are moving into their off-season but will continue to practice in preparation to compete at Nationals in Orlando, Florida March 2-7th. They will be competing in Hip Hop as well as Game Day. Kerri and the Poms team want to thank everyone at FMHS, District 51 as well as our community for the amazing support this year! It truly means so much!
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