Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow
Porter Sonntag said his mechanical engineering degree might take a bit longer than planned.
But that’s OK, he said, before taking the stage Thursday night for Lip Sync.
He’s been dancing. And you never get these college days back.
After that, the 26-member team of young men he captains and performs with helped make Sonntag a three-time champion when Deliverance won the annual student-run-and-performed contest that filled Grand Canyon University’s Global Credit Union Arena with a record crowd of more than 6,100.
Sonntag, who was part of the 2024 winning outfit, Don’t Blink, gathered a bunch of guys – all but one other dancer was new to his team – who didn’t know much about dancing and performing but busted a gut in two-hour practices for weeks.
Deliverance, he said, follows the storyline of guys under control by the system, fighting back with a strong community, inspired by the story of Moses in Exodus.
But when the group came on stage, it was an exuberant group of the oppressed. They were studs in jumpsuits, like an HVAC team checking the air who decided instead to twerk, jump, flip, fly, and groove until, of course, they got a tad warm and had to peel off the top layer to finish out in tight tank tops.
The girls in the crowd up front, many from underclassmen halls The Grove, screamed often and loud – and when the votes were counted at the end of the night, Deliverance delivered.
“I loved all of it,” said a sweaty Sonntag afterward.
He loved looking over to see his teammates with a competitive fire in their faces as they performed a muscular and gymnastic set, “smiling and throwing their butts. I loved watching them have the time of their life.”
The Cheer team members who helped Deliverance slapped his back, his mom gave him a hug and grandma showed him her sign, “Defying Gravity.”
“I tell the team you don’t need to be like everybody else to fit in,” Sonntag said. “You can be yourself.”
The “Wicked” theme that the Canyon Activities Board selected from the popular film and play, with its soundtrack hit, “Defying Gravity,” was a thread throughout, more for its message of friendship, standing up for beliefs and striving to be yourself than its song and dance selections, often picked months before.
After students camped out for the show as early as Tuesday, then filled in the arena in waves to dance in their seats or watched the livestream (with 4,100 views) on the Quad, a 25-foot curtain dropped to reflect a huge metal face, announcing the great and powerful Oz, demanding these teams show why he should see them. Thunder, the school mascot, got a bit too excited and accidently pulled down the curtain to reveal …
… Host Matthew Stout, er, the Wizard of Oz, who did a very good Jeff Goldblum impression, soft-shoeing while saying, “You gotta give the people what they want.”
Its event title, "Lip Sync: For Good," played off the upcoming part-two film but was also a flavor of the night with faith messages from the team Below (humble yourself) and Sin Game (Jesus loves you).
The precision hip-hop team of Metro Motion performed a rhythmic faceoff with police and street dancers but also ended up feeling good with the two groups getting down together.
“You always need a good storyline,” said Ashley Cote, a three-time Lip Sync coach and former student body president, who led Anonymity.
Its story was “Men in Black,” so team members wore white shirts, black ties and shades, and in the end, the good guys and girls win.
But the surprise of the night came from the team of Mask Off.
Sisters Bella and Abby Huld said they wanted to hide identities to make it seem like they were a team of all boys, who often win the competition.
“We wanted to act and dance like a guy, being manly,” said Abby Huld.
As they moved huskily through their performance with fight scenes and strong gymnastics, the 10 boys on the team ripped off their masks. But before the last song of their set, the 25 girls’ masks came off and the long hair flew.
Tricked.
They could dance, “no matter if you’re a girl or a guy,” Huld told Stout in the on-stage interview afterward.
No matter if you're green, ride on a broom or wear a mask, or if like Sin Game, you are not trying to win Lip Sync but “win people over for His Kingdom,” they were themselves.
And three-time Lip Sync host Stout wasn’t the wizard they expected but the one they needed.
He said he was afraid at that first Sync, but the tall senior with a shock of curly hair conquered it with Jesus Christ. He thanked the GCU staff member responsible for making Lip Sync run, CAB events coordinator Austin Powell, who afterward couldn’t remember a tougher competition between two teams – Deliverance and Mask Off.
As his teammates jumped around with the trophy, Liam Cornish perhaps said it best, resting with his feet dangling over the stage.
“I’ve never done this before, but I needed to do stuff I will never do outside of college.”
Dancing in a jumpsuit before 6,000 people might qualify.
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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Deliverance team members: Abe Rappuhn, Andrew Hill, Caden Fredericks, Caden Schmidgall, Caleb Hargrove, Chandler Dilley, Dillon Alldredge, Elisha Wells, Ethan Hawkes, Jack Montgomery, Jeremiah Park, John Guevara, Joseph Gennaro, Liam Cornish, Matthew Guzman, Nathan Toton, Noah Juhl, Porter Johnson, Porter Sonntag, Quintin Medor, Richie Grabowski, Roman Veigel, Ryan Martins, Samuel Zhao, Tanner Thornton, Trevin Oliver.
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