Several Choirs Notch Good Results at Sioux Falls Jefferson Cavalier Classic

By Quinn Masek, Siouxland contributor

The 2026 Cav Classic once again showed its place as an interesting early season competition that pits out of state groups against local ones. A mix of local and far-away groups landed in good places to being their competition seasons.

Prep Division

1st: Ankeny Centennial “Chaos”

2nd: Dell Rapids “Espresso”

Even though it isn’t Ankeny Centennial's largest or most advanced choir, Chaos still proved that they are a capable prep group not to be underestimated.

Womens Division

1st: Sioux Falls Roosevelt “Capitol Harmony”

No Placement: Sioux Falls Washington "Stage Lights", Aberdeen Central "Special Request"

In a division where the winner could’ve gone to any of the competitors, it was Sioux Falls Roosevelt’s girls group who won. Last season they got last in this division at Cav Classic, so seeing them win it this year is a massive improvement.

Medium Mixed

1st: O’Gorman “Ovation”

2nd: Ankeny Centennial “Eternal Rush”

While they missed finals, Ovation was able to win this division over Eternal Rush, showing that the choreographer switch from Kevin Chase to Sam Mulligan was very beneficial.

Final Results:

GC: Ankeny Centennial “Spectrum” (BV/BC/BB)

1st Runner Up: Aberdeen Central “Eagle Express”

2nd Runner Up: Sioux Falls Washington “Classic Connection”

3rd Runner Up: Omaha South “The Ambassadors”

4th Runner Up: Ankeny Centennial “Vortex”

5th Runner Up: Sioux Falls Roosevelt “Executive Suite”

For the first time since 2022, Executive Suite made finals at Jefferson. While they only placed sixth here, Executive Suite is a group that tends to improve a lot over the season, so they are certainly in for more success for the rest of the season.

Vortex hasn’t missed finals at a competition since their creation in the 2024 season, that didn’t change at Jefferson, and it doesn’t look like they will miss finals at all for the rest of the season.

Like Executive Suite, The Ambassadors is another group that tends to improve more as the season goes on, so it’ll be very interesting to see how much they improve by the time they compete next at Millard West in a few weeks after landing in the middle of finals here.

Placing on the podium shows promise for Classic Connection, as they have a tough battle this upcoming weekend at Linn-Mar. It will be interesting to see if they use what they learned here to make it into finals at Supernova.

The upset of the night was Eagle Express getting second place. In fact Eagle Express is the only South Dakota group to get second place or higher at this competition, doing so in 2022, 2023 and now 2026 behind out-of-state winners. The key will be to keep up this momentum the rest of the season.

Spectrum was the clear victor of the day, bringing a level of talent never seen at the Cav Classic before. Now that they’ve started the season with a Grand Champion trophy, the question is 'can they do it again at a few other competitions?'. This upcoming weekend, they will compete against Southeast Polk and Valley at Waukee to take the top spot again.