ETV News stock photo by Taren Powell
The Dino Dynamics will welcome in a new competition season under the direction of first-time coach Taylor Loveland. While Loveland just recently joined the high school coaching ranks, she is very familiar with the program and the dance world.
She was part of the drill team when she attended Carbon High and went on to dance at Utah State University Eastern. She also has many years teaching dance under her belt. In fact, Loveland instructed many of her current dancers when they were young.
“It’s been really fun, there’s been a lot of learning,” began Loveland when talking about taking over the program. “It’s been a great year so far; I’ve really enjoyed it.”
The nearly 30-member squad brings back a lot of experience with 25 returners, including 19 upperclassmen. “We are going to have a great year. The girls are extremely talented,” added Loveland.
Carbon will showcase five routines, including military, dance, show, pom and hip hop. “We are all excited for show this year. It’s a fun routine.” Loveland continued, “It’s a great mashup of fun songs. We are excited to perform that.”
The Dinos will have three competitions and then qualifying regionals before they can move on to state. After coming together to discuss this season, the girls have set their sights on finishing within the top five at state. “One of their biggest goals is to place well at state. They’d obviously love to be state title holders,” explained Loveland. “But they really want to place top five in state.”
Loveland has benchmarks of her own that she will be working towards. “My biggest goal is to grow the program and continue making it better. When I was on drill team, I loved it. Some of my good friends are from that time in my life. I just hope to create that for the girls and help them be able to reach their potential as a team.”
She went on, “I think it’s hard in high school to look beyond yourself and I just want them to see how amazing they are and help them reach their goals. I always try to be really uplifting. Our big thing this year is celebrate small wins. I think that’s just super important to be able to celebrate with each other. I try to focus on positivity and supporting and loving each other.”
She concluded, “They are just an extremely talented team. I can’t wait to get our routines clean and be able to perform them. We’re super excited region is at Emery this year and we hope that we get lots of community support over there. Overall, we are just really excited for our competitions to start.”