Loyola’s dance team, the Golden Eyes, has lost seven members since the beginning of the semester, leaving them with only eight remaining dancers.

In September of 2011, the group had 10 members, mostly freshmen and sophomores. By the end the Spring 2012 semester only half of the original team was still intact. Now, only two of the ten original members are still on the team. They held tryouts over the summer.

Biology junior Alisia Senegal is the team’s captain and biology sophomore Lauren Jones is co-captain. According to Senegal, her biggest challenge as captain has been keeping the team together.

“We do our job as supporting athletic teams,” Senegal said.

Keeping dancers on the team has been a consistent challenge in year’s past, as well as a recent challenge.

“Girls just keep dropping like flies,” said a mother of a current dancer who didn’t want her name to be used in order to protect her daughter. The mother, who said that she never tells her children to quit anything, said she told her daughter that she should just quit. The dancer’s mother felt that the power struggle that lies between team members, along with the time dance team consumes in her daughter’s schedule, caused her to tell her daughter to quit.

Mass communication sophomore Kaelyn Charbonnet is a former member of the dance team from last year, but only served one semester before she left the team.

“I left the team for personal reasons,” Charbonnet said.

The former dance member said she was working two jobs at the time along with being a full-time student. This conflicted with practice and performance schedules that included three to four hours of practice for three days a week.

Jones and Senegal noted that many of the girls who left last year moved out of the state. One girl joined the Texas National Guard and another was a graduating senior.

“We have nothing against the girls that decided to drop,” Jones said.

Crystal Vaccaro, adviser for the dance team and the associate director of admissions, along with Jones and Senegal created a strategy on how they were going to build up a new team. Auditions lasted for two to three weeks starting in the spring and extended into the summer. This year, Jones and Senegal did the judging.

Charbonnet had an overall good experience. She mostly enjoyed getting to know other dancers within the group.

“In the end, people started quitting,” Charbonnet said.

Charbonnet was shocked when she first heard the news that dancers on this year’s group were quitting early in this semester.

Vaccaro said she recognizes the challenges of putting together a club sport, but sees the dance team making progress.

“It’s like any other year: ups and downs. They all have a positive outlook and are continuing strong with the goals that they have set for them,” Vaccaro said. “They do have the drive.”

Santiago Caicedo can be reached at [email protected]

Cami Thomas can be reached at [email protected]