Ship Idols sing their hearts out to their favorite love songs

Love was in the air as the remaining nine Ship Idol contestants belted heartfelt songs on Tuesday, Feb. 14.

und of the competition drew in even more audience members than last week, filling almost every available seat.

Judging the idols this week was Season 2 Ship Idol contestant Alexa Diamond, Resident Assistant and Mike Coyne and Brandon Morasco.

The night started with Juele Stokes soulfully singing “Dangerously in Love” by Beyonce.
The judges liked her passion but said she needed to be more confident.

Following Stokes was Gillian Dolen, who impressed the judges and the audience once again.
Her confidence shined through as she sang “Turning Tables” by Adele.

All of the judges agreed that Dolen’s big voice sounded like Adele, and actually admitted to liking her rendition of the song more than the original.

Dolen’s performance put the judges and the audience in a great mood.
Hoping to live-up to the audience’s expectations was the only male of the competition Conor Kennedy.

Kennedy took a different approach to his performance. Along with singing, he strummed his guitar as he sang “Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie.

The judges loved his stage presence, but told him to be careful and not get too distracted with the guitar, because it is a singing competition.

Taking the stage after Kennedy’s performance was red-head Emily Keen who the audience and judges fell in love with last week.

Keen sang the Usher song, “Without You” and sang a slower more melodic version that had been covered on “Glee.”

The judges said that Keen was adorable and that she blew them away, once again.
Another hot performance of the evening was the sassy and spunky Briana Blewett, who belted out “Breakeven” by The Script.

Because the song is originally sung by male artists, Blewett changed some of the lyrics to make it more personal and relatable to her.

This impressed the judges even more. Blewett showed the judges what she could do and improved from her performance last week.

Emily Bentzle, another crowd favorite from Week 1, sang “One and Only” by Adele.

Her voice left the judges speechless. They were also impressed because she was the first singer of the night to take the microphone off of the stand and work the stage.

Kaniesha Stern and Marcella Best also impressed the judges.

Stern belted “If I Ain’t Got You” by Alicia Keys and Best sang “Love all Over” by Monica. The judges thought both performances were good, but could use some work on vocals and stage presence.

Ending the night on a high note was Alexis Matthews, who sang an acoustic version of “We Found Love” by Rihanna.

Like Kennedy, Matthews used a guitar as she sang, but took it a step higher by having two guitarists play in the background as she sang along.

The judges were very impressed with her big voice and nice range. They said it was a great way to end the show.

After all of the performances, it was time for voting to commence. While the audience voted, they were treated to a special performance by last year’s third place idol Jozalyn Gregor who sang a tribute to the late Whitney Houston.

Gregor sang “I Have Nothing.”

After Gregor left the stage, Season 1 Ship Idol winner Jean Martinez took the stage and treated the audience to a performance of one of his favorite songs, “Crawl” by Chris Brown.

After the votes were cast Juele Stokes was eliminated from the competition.