Band Narrowly Misses Out on State Finals

Geoffrey Daniels

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The marching band traveled to San Antonio for the state marching contest on Monday, Nov. 5 and stayed overnight until Tuesday, Nov. 6. The band performed in prelims on Monday, with the hopes of making finals on Tuesday.

Despite a strong performance and what band members called the best show of the season on the night of prelims, the band did not make finals and placed 13th. The threshold to make finals was 12th. Although they did not make finals the band put in everything they had.

Despite the performance being the best of the season, one judge at the competition disagreed. The judges’ ordinals (placements) were as follows:

Music Judge 1: 7th

Music Judge 2: 11th

Music Judge 3: 11th

Visual Judge 1: 14th

Visual Judge 2: (Brace yourself) 34th

This one visual judge single-handedly brought the band out of finals into the 13th spot. If this judge had given the band a placement of 20th or higher they would have made finals, sneaking in at 12th.

All three music judges had the band in finals, with one visual judge having them barely missing it. Due to the one outlier judge, the average became 13th although averaging the first four judges would have placed the band in 11th place, enough to advance to finals.

In other news, other bands around the district did exceptionally well with four bands making finals, and three placing in the top five. Vista Ridge won the competition, Vandegrift came in third receiving the bronze medal. Leander came in fifth place, and Cedar Ridge came in 11th. Hendrickson also attended the competition getting 25th in prelims.