On March 26, color guard capped off their penultimate competition with a 13th place semifinals finish at the West Power Regional in Las Vegas.
Just hours after their pep rally performance, color guard departed on a long road trip to Nevada. There, they competed against 31 other teams from all over the Pacific coast in one of Winterguard International’s three regional competitions.
For senior and captain Alyssa Miller, this was a special chance to perform with her team and showcase their talents at a higher level.
“I think it was a great bonding experience,” Miller said. “We got to really connect as a group and we had a lot of fun competing against some really great teams.”
The team’s show, entitled “Remnants” is an abstract performance about memories of the past. It is designed to invoke nostalgia from the crowd by drawing out remnants of their childhood. According to Miller, the official story is the performers escaping from a fire with only their equipment and a special stuffed animal from their youth.
“It’s about loving what you have left and doing what you love,” Miller said.
The competition was divided into three stages: the preliminaries, semi-finals and finals. Judges scored each performance and ranked the teams after every round, with teams towards the bottom being eliminated. The team finished 15th in the preliminaries and then moved up to 13th in the semi-finals. While not qualifying for the final round, the team finished in the top half of the competition field and secured their place as some of the region’s elite student performers.
“Honestly the experience was amazing, watching experienced and advanced guards was really inspiring,” sophomore Shiphalika Mahesh said. “I’m really glad that we placed well, considering the large amount of hours we put into practicing everyday it feels amazing to know that it paid off.”
This marks the team’s return to the competition after competing at the World Championship in Dayton last year. According to both captains their overall performance and scoring has vastly improved and both are very proud of what they managed to accomplish this year.
“Personally, I’m really proud of our team for taking on a emotionally challenging show and making it our own by attaching personal meaning to it and portraying that,” captain and senior Savannah Griffin said. “I’m proud of our growth as a family and our friendships that make performing and competing at a high level possible.”
For Griffin, the trip showed how close they have grown and how those bonds have allowed them to grow as performers.
“Going to Vegas together was an amazing experience that really enabled us to grow closer not only as a team, but as a family,” Griffin said. “Spending time together, in and out of color guard, helps us grow closer on a personal level, and those bonds help us perform stronger on a performance level as well. The relationships that we build help us have confidence in each other’s skills and responsibilities, competition wise, and creates a level of interdependence that enables us to compete at the level we are at.”