Ilona Maher bounced back during Dancing with the stars‘ Dedication Night – but she still sets her sights higher.

“I was hoping for higher scores, but I also just wanted to improve from last week and get back on the horse and feel better about it,” the 28-year-old Maher said exclusively. We weekly following the Tuesday, October 15 episode of the ABC Ballroom Competition. “So if I felt better about it and got a seven or a six, I would have said, ‘Oh, that was good for me.'”

Her partner, Alan Berstenagreed. “These are our highest scores, so we’ll take them with us,” he said Us. “But for me the scores didn’t matter because the first time, when we finished, I was really like, ‘Oh, my God. We crushed that.” I was so present in it. Usually I black out and hope for the best. And this time I felt so connected to Ilona, ​​and it was just beautiful. So I’m very happy. Scores don’t matter, but we are proud that we got eights.”

The dancing duo scored 32 out of 40 points for their rumba to “My Way” by Yes. Maher dedicated her performance to her US Women’s National Rugby Sevens teammates, with whom she took home a bronze medal at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris earlier this year.

“Everyone asks me how, ‘Oh, how did you become so confident? How did you get like this? What you do for women is so amazing.” And I just answer that the reason is up to them,” Maher said. “And when you’re around a group of women like that who make you feel so powerful and so beautiful, it translates and affects you and changes other people.”

Maher told Us she was “so happy” to see her teammates cheering her on in the crowd on Tuesday, as it was their first reunion since the Paris Games. “Just to see them in this setting, and I know they’re proud of me and they support me,” she said. “And yes, they cried because they just love me, and I think we love each other.”

Bersten, for his part, said he wanted to dedicate their latest dance to his parents. “I’m a mama’s boy. I love my mother. I love my father,” he said. “I am very grateful for my family.”

The pair’s score put them level with their competitors on five points Brooks Nader And Gleb Savchenko, Chandler Kinney And Brandon Armstrong, Jen Tran And Sasha Farber And Phaedra Parks And Val Chmerkovskiy. Nader, 28, and Savchenko, 41, were sent home.

Maher’s Dedication Night performance was a big improvement from last week’s Hair Metal Night, which left her teary-eyed after ruining the pair’s jive to Quiet Riot’s “Cum On Feel the Noize.” The dance earned them a score of 26 points.

Maher told Us she is “not shocked” that her time is up DWTS has been emotional. “I have always been someone who wears my emotions on my sleeve. If I feel a certain way, I will show it,” she explained. “And my teammates even said, I think, my best friend said, ‘Well, when you finished crying the next day, we just said, ‘Oh, that’s Lo.'” Like, ‘Oh, that’s Lo that’s just the way it is.’ .’ Sometimes she does, and she gets right back on the horse.

She continued: “It’s just always how I’ve been. I cry at rugby. I’m crying in one of the toughest sports in the world. And it doesn’t take away from how powerful I am or who I am as a person.”

Maher and Bersten, 30, will return to the ballroom for Disney Night on Tuesday, October 22.

Dancing with the stars will simulcast on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8pm ET. The next day you can stream episodes on Disney+.

With reporting by Carly Konsker