One of the blond teenage ballroom dancers from Utah County is out of the competition on "So You Think You Can Dance." Which might possibly be good news for the other blond, teenage ballroom dancer from Utah County.

Not that Witney Carson has anything against Lindsay Arnold, who was eliminated last week. The two 18-year-olds are best friends and have supported each other through this season.

But even though Arnold and Carson consistently received rave reviews from the show's judges, one or the other of them consistently ended up in danger of being eliminated after viewers voted for their favorite dancers. Which mean the judges had to "save" one of them week after week.

That might have had something to do with the fact that the two blond, teenage ballroom dancers from Utah County appealed to the same viewers.

"I think, yeah, we might have been splitting votes because we were so much alike," Arnold said. "It was funny. We were back and forth being on the bottom."

Until last week, when Arnold and Carson were the bottom two female dancers and the judges could save only one of them. And Arnold took it extremely well when the judges kept her friend in the competition.

Sure, she was fighting back tears, but they were "more tears of happiness and excitement," Arnold said. "It was tears of sadness because it was hard to leave all my friends and leave Witney." But was also proud of how far she had come.

She's not entirely done. Arnold will be part of the 23-city "SYTYCD" tour in October in November. (There are no Utah dates.)

Heading into this week's episode (Wednesday, 7 p.m., Fox/Channel 13), just six dancers remain — three men and three women. And under this year's format, two of them — one man and one woman — will be declared the winners.

It's no surprise who Carson is rooting for on the female side of the competition.

"Hopefully, now that Witney is staying, the people who voted for me are going to vote for her so she can win," Carson said. "That would be amazing. And I hope they do that."

Carson is also rooting for "So You Think You Can Dance" itself. The ratings are down from what they were in 2011, and there are rumors that this season might be its last.

Which would be a very bad thing for Utah dancers, who have consistently made it on the show and made a splash once they arrived.

"I know that people at 'So You Think You Can Dance' are still planning on another season," Arnold said. "This is such a good show for dancers, and it should stay around as long as possible."

Scott D. Pierce covers television for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.