Making their holiday wish come true
Andrew gets surprise guest for second take of video dancing to Mariah Carey holiday anthem, and wins IHSA’s Holiday TikTok Challenge, benefitting a local hospital
Andrew team gets surprise guest for video, wins IHSAHoliday TikTok Challenge, benefiting a local hospital.
When Andrew seniors Amy Rediger and Meredith Flaherty were creating a video for the Illinois High School Association’s inaugural Holiday TikTok Challenge, they didn’t get it quite right the first time.
Rediger, Flaherty and four teammates went to festively decorated downtown Tinley Park to romp, dance, hop, jump and hit volleyballs to the tune of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” for a 30-second video.
Flaherty, the editor for the project, thought it was “super funny” and “super good.”
But it also was super short.
“It was 15 seconds too short,” said Rediger, the director. “We had to scrap the whole thing and start fromscratch.”
The second take had a nice surprise.
“Santa pulled up in his truck,” Rediger said. “We said, ‘That’s it! That’s our winner becausewe got Santa involved.’ Itwas a total coincidence that he showed up, but we were pretty excited about it.”
With the assist from Santa and some big-time online voting, the T-Bolts won the IHSA’s competition, earning $250 from Double Good to be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and $250 for their school.
The T-Bolts dug into their own pockets and matched the total for the St. Jude donation. They are asking the other District 230 schools, Sandburg and Stagg, to kick in $250 and have requested that each tags two more schools to create a donation chain.
Rediger said the goal is to donate one large check to families at St. Jude during the holiday season.
The T-Bolts who created the video — Flaherty, Rediger, Mia Ceniti, Amber Gahse, Katie DeHaan and Colleen Cleary— beat out the O’Fallon girls basketball
team, the Mercer County showchoir and the Vienna cheerleading team in the final four. There were 145 entries, and more than 50,000 people voted in the contest, according to David Lenti, Double Good’s vice president of partnerships for high schools. Rediger said Andrew coach Emily Connolly heard about the contest and figured Rediger and Flaherty could help whip up a winner. Girls volleyball, a fall sport, has been pushed to the spring by the IHSA due to the coronavirus pandemic, and Flaherty said it was fun to get back together with some teammates.
The T-Bolts hope to return to the court soon and build on what was a breakthrough 2019 season.
Andrew won its first regional title since 2006 and made it to the sectional final for the first time since 2003. Its run included a wild 25-20, 1925, 25-20 upset win over Lincoln-Way East in the Class 4A Andrew Regional final and an even wilder 25-21, 21-25, 25-23 triumph over Homewood-Flossmoor in the Sandburg Sectional semifinals.
The T-Bolts (26-11) lost 25-17, 25-17 to District 230 rival Sandburg in the sectional final in front of a crowd of more than 1,000 in Orland Park.
“Last year made us so excited for the future,” Flaherty said. “Itwas great to see us finally succeed. After what we had started, wewant to keep it going.”
“We lost six seniors, but there are nine of us returning, and that’s the majority of the team,” Rediger added. “After this long break, it’s just so exciting, and I’m just so anxious to get back out there because I feel like there are big things ahead for us.”