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One of the things I love about this activity is how generally supportive the guards are of each other. That really isn't always the case in sporting events. I think there's a lot of empathy here. Pretty much nobody feels good when they see somebody else drop during a big moment. Conversely, there's a lot of excitement when guards take a big risk and nail it.

Did anyone else just love the ear-piercing screams at the end of The Woodlands flag and rifle ensemble elements? I so miss experiencing this excitement live. Reminded me of being in Dayton in 2015 watching Aimachi in the finals..

Scores went up pretty significantly in finals at WGI Austin for the most part, especially for the A guards. That 84.690 for Pearland is really making me wish they were going to Dayton! Oh, well. Maybe next year! *fingers crossed* Come ooooon, Clear Brook! 😄 TWHS with an 86, despite that opening drop. That's great; I mean, the overall show was still very well performed. 88 for both vocab and excellence in equipment -- now that's a judge who probably agrees with me about their equipment skills relative to the field this year. They'll be seeded 2nd behind Tarpon for now. Looks like my prediction of Tarpon vs. TWHS may still come true, but I'm sure Carmel and Avon will have something to say about it. Carmel got an 85.2 at their local contest yesterday, with Avon a little over a point behind them. It's gonna be competitive!

Just realized I had this in the wrong place. This spreadsheet is similar to what someone else did last year and I really liked it so I wanted to bring it back for the 2023 season, but with contest's added from other states as well! I am still working on adding contests- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h2FIrEBGa0UzGbTFQZdEA8AbFKlafZQhGsjNCswKF3c/edit#gid=1137039197 If you would like to be an editor, please DM me

The final schedule for WGI Austin has been posted. You can find it here: https://wgi.org/individual-events/?single_event=austin_regional_1035 This is probably my favorite event in Texas. You get a good mix of groups from across the state. I'm looking forward to seeing Hebron and Westlake for the first time. Hebron has been underperforming a little bit so far compared to where I'd thought they'd be, but I'm curious if they can turn it around. I'll be missing Coppell, Clear Brook, TWHS JV, and a small handful of the Dallas A guards, like Rock Hill and Southlake Carroll, but besides that you've pretty much got it all at this contest.

I agree completely. Perhaps there needs to be an Independent Amusement class added. I would love to create a guard of 50 year olds and up just for entertainment value. 😂

My momma always said…😂 Anyway, correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that Independent World is the only classification that has no age limit right? So if that’s the case and you want to be in an Independent guard at 35 years of age, your only option is an IW guard. And if you want to create a guard for all ages, you are then stuck in this IW classification whether you deserve to be there or not. Am I totally wrong about that? Are there age restrictions on IA and IO or no?

I'm surprised the Scholastic Open class scores in Texas are as low as they are after prelims. Westlake's score at San Antonio dropped from 2 weeks ago. And the highest scoring guard at Dallas (Choctaw, who I didn't even watch!) scored just over 80. I gotta say, after watching the Pennsylvania SO guards, the Dallas judges might want to think about increasing those scores significantly in finals. I'd have the top SO guards I saw at Dallas higher than the top SO guards at Pennsylvania. I mean, that hokey Somerville rodeo show scored higher than all the guards at Dallas. That earns a big 'ol "Huh?!!" from me, although I understand it's two completely different panels at two completely different contests. But the scores are supposed to be comparable, given the national seeding process.

I just finished catching up on the remaining Scholastic As. I thought the third block was very strong. I'm not surprised to see several high scores in that block, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the top guards there rearrange in finals. And I was VERY happy to see Westfield here! ❤️ Seven Lakes' music seemed weirdly off, like the two speakers weren't perfectly in time with each other, so there was an odd echo effect. I love those T-shirt flags! Friendswood's finished set design is gorgeous. I love the staging in this show and all the expressive qualities. I'm not sure it was quite clean enough to warrant an 80+, but the content was there. Overall, the Houston-area A guards had a very strong showing here, taking the top 4 spots. Congrats to Pearland, Friendswood, and Cypress Woods on those top 3 placements. We'll see if they can hold onto them tomorrow! Now time to catch up on Open class...

I’m here for it! 😍😍

Hey @LeanderMomma! Jordan HS has also just been promoted; from A Class to Open Class (and will be attending WGI Austin)! You mentioned in this week’s On A Water Break podcast that you weren’t familiar with Jordan HS. Jordan is the newest HS in Katy ISD. This is their 3rd year in existence and first year with four full classes of students. They made the BOA Shenandoah Finals this past fall! I’m expecting great things from this program (plus my daughter is their 1st Assistant Director 😉)! As a longtime proud supporter and Floor Crew member of TWHS Guards, I’m looking forward to seeing you again in Austin on Sunday (I’ll be at the WGI Katy Percussion Regional Saturday to watch my son’s performance with Austin’s Rhythmic Force).

Both Austin and Bedford will be exciting. Luckily I live about a 15 minute drive from Kelly Reeves. Having spectated this for years and I feel blessed. It's been a golden era for HS marching bands in an area. Bedford is a great show for a top half/bottom half contest. It's also a great place for fans to comfortably watch the contest. Much better than Kelly Reeves for the people in the stands all day. Plus the PA at Kelly Reeves is possibly the worst in all of Texas for a contest. You'd figure that the Round Rock ISD could fund a new PA system but I guess that's not on their radar. There's only 1 show and it's non-BOA in the country that has a higher band for band performance level and fortunately it's even closer to me than Kelly Reeves. That show is the Leander Festival of Bands. Last year was a madhouse like I've not seen before. It's not a contest but it's a celebration for the middle and high school programs. Plus getting the hear and feel: Leander Vandegrift Vista Ridge Cedar Park Glenn Rouse and all of the middle school bands play together at the end of the show is almost as powerful as when DCI finalists all played at finals award ceremonies.

Congrats to Westlake on coming out on top in Open class in your first year in the class! Very, very impressive! Kind of an interesting mashup of the regular dance-y sounding Robyn song Dancing On My Own and a more slowed-down piano version of it. Meanwhile, Winston Churchill wins the award for most WTF show I've seen so far this year. It was a hilariously chaotic floor full of monkeys and monkey bars. I love when the safari guy comes out and is chasing them around. I think he ends up in the cage at the end. 😄 I actually liked ORIGINS Open more than I liked ORIGINS World again. I thought they gave a clean performance of a very clear design. The world class show was... interesting. It's something different, and it may take me multiple viewings to appreciate it more. I will add that Wayne Harris voiceovers are definitely back in style this year. See: Tarpon Springs. If there's a more talented high school guard in the US than TWHS World this year, I haven't seen it -- at least from an equipment perspective. Is there any other guard in the US right now that could do those insane ripple trick tosses at the end of that show as cleanly as they did them? Not a single drop on the traveling 6s over the arms of the girls. Not a single drop on the roll tosses over the moving dolly that immediately follow. Clean catches, too. WOW! But, as others have mentioned, the design needs to match the level of the performers. I still think the show is in desperate need of a color infusion. Everything is so dark that the staging looks cluttered in parts, because I can't tell the girls from the floor from the boxes. Adding a pop of brighter color to the performers seems like an easy fix. Also, I'd like to see more shaping in the staging in the last section with all the weapon work around the boxes. But overall that 84.9 is a great prelims score, and they're probably still at least in the running for a medal at Dayton.

I'm catching up. Watching fragments and full shows here and there. I've gotten through the first block. New Braunfels came out on top over Georgetown, which is a change from WGI Houston. I agree with that. I thought New Braunfels had a very clear, logical program and gave one of the cleanest performances I've seen so far. I believe it was the Georgia O'Keeffe one with Georgia on My Mind for the soundtrack. Georgetown by contrast seemed to have a somewhat rough run, with room to grow for finals. Shadow Creek was clean, but the soundtrack (River Deep, Mountain High) is kind of samey from beginning, middle, to end, which makes the show not feel as dynamic as some of the others. It was fun, though, and high energy. Hebron's varsity was absolutely lovely. I'm surprised they've been scoring as low as they have, but this is the first time I've seen them. More Than Gold, was it? Something like that. I think the floor was a guitar with a little black table on it. The costumes are kind of a similar, gold-ish color to the floor. I found it very expressive, and one of the better performances so far as well. Mount Pleasant was a standout, too. Very eye-popping floor and confident performers.

Wow! Lots of promotions! And this means that Jordan has officially made it off the waitlist!

Congratulations to the Flower Mound Open Class guard for their promotion this week back to World status! And that makes three! And all attending WGI Austin. I am beside myself. 🥰

I think Bellbrook may have been promoted to World class. They're showing up in Scholastic World on the current entries list. Congrats to them, if that's the case! Big accomplishment. I'm still waiting for Jordan to get off the waiting list for A class. I've got my fingers crossed. They've had a great start to their season.

I had a recent video of Pride of Cincinnati's show come up in my YouTube feed. I just can't stop watching it! So many fine shows this year and a good year for guard fans.

No. Group Name Score Division Scholastic Regional A 1 Prosper HS JV (Prosper, TX) 78.460 I 2 North Garland HS (Garland, TX) 76.770 I Independent Regional A 1 PC North West Original (Oklahoma City, OK) 77.150 - Score Division Scholastic A 1 Friendswood HS (Friendswood, TX) 91.050 I 2 Southlake Carroll HS (Southlake, TX) 90.210 I 3 Clear Brook HS (Friendswood, TX) 89.320 I 4 Timber Creek HS (Keller, TX) 86.820 I 5 Keller Central HS (Ft. Worth, TX) 85.650 I 6 Grand Oaks HS (Spring, TX) 84.970 I 7 Burleson Centennial HS (Burleson, TX) 84.420 I 8 Wylie HS (Wylie, TX) 83.880 I 9 Mount Pleasant HS (Mount Pleasant, TX) 83.800 I 10 Pebble Hills HS (El Paso, TX) 82.840 I 11 Rock Hill HS (Frisco, TX) 81.410 I 12 Hebron HS (Carrollton, TX) 80.090 I 13 Vista Ridge HS (Cedar Park, TX) 79.630 I 14 Jenks HS Varsity (Jenks, OK) 79.410 I 15 The Colony HS (The Colony, TX) 77.530 I Independent A 1 Eagle Mountain Independent (Saginaw, TX) 78.870 - 2 Zephyrus Independent Winter Guard (Tulsa, OK) 77.570 - 3 Future Independent Winterguard (Jackson, MS) 72.060 - Score Division Scholastic Open 1 Marcus HS (Flower Mound, TX) 81.800 I 2 James Bowie HS (Austin) (Austin, TX) 79.400 I 3 Little Elm HS (Little Elm, TX) 79.300 I 4 Choctaw HS (Choctaw, OK) 78.900 I 5 Coppell HS (Coppell, TX) 78.300 I 6 McKinney HS (McKinney, TX) 76.600 I 7 McNeil HS (Austin, TX) 74.100 II 8 Southmoore HS (Moore, OK) 73.700 II 9 Cy-Fair HS (Cypress, TX) 72.400 II Independent Open 1 Glory Independent (El Paso, TX) 82.400 - 2 Undaunted (Klein , TX) 79.000 - 3 Black Gold Open (Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX) 76.600 - 4 Redemption Guard (Houston, TX) 74.000 - Score Division Scholastic World 1 Flower Mound HS (Flower Mound, TX) 77.300 I Independent World 1 Mirage (Dallas, TX) 87.500 - 2 ORIGINS (Austin, TX) 87.200 - 3 Invictus (Austin, TX) 82.000 - 4 Third Coast Independent (Houston, TX) 74.400 -

Well, maybe a geriatric class should be considered!

Well, the good news is that Friendswood, Southlake Carroll, and Clear Brook will shoot right up to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the national standings. The bad news is that I think pretty much all of the Scholastic Open guards in Texas will drop a bit. Hopefully they can turn it around at Dayton!

From my perspective, you're just a pup. People would pay to NOT watch people my age. Heck, I'd pay not to watch people my age perform...

This 50-year old former guard girl would totally sign up for that! Just put me in bubble wrap so I don’t bust a hip 😂

A Make-A-Wish Foundation performance. Christ, I'm still laughing at that. 😂 Now every time I see some horribly misclassed guard, I'm going to think of that. "Oh, they must be cancer patients!" I think the guard probably would have been scored a 100 in exhibition had that been the case. 😂

That's a fair point. It's 22 years in IA and 23 years in IO. But I also think a director needs to be honest with himself about his ability to recruit at the world class level before assembling a guard that will be forced to compete in IW. That's especially true if you're advertising your guard to potential members as a true ✨World Class✨ experience.

Did you see the train close down over the guard just as a flag was tossed from outside the train, and someone inside it caught that sucker AFTER the train window came down over them?! 😱😱

imma say the more concerning thing is the fact that for the 2nd yr in a row we've got a missouri guard in IW that has no business being in that class. there's gotta be a human interest angle to all of this right? riiiiight?!!! like they're all cancer patients or something and this is a make-a-wish performance. or all the performers are like homeless and living in shelters. gotta be somethin other than pure delusion. hahahaha.

Maybe just a little early yet. For me, I'm more into WGI right now and starting to think about DCI. Trying to manage my obsessions!

Living in the dfw my whole life, I've always heard such incredible things about the LISD night, and I've wanted to go so bad. Luckly, I'm only about an hour and a half away from Gupton stadium now that I'm going to college here in Waco, and considering that I won't be able to go to either Austin or Bedford due to having to do marching band for football games this coming up season (Thanks for scheduling 8 home games this year NCAA committee), I will most likely make the drive down this year. Vista is the only one I've gotten to see live from a great angle at GN's finals in 21, but I need to see everyone else!

i guuuess u could say that the '97 marching show was their Westworld. hahahaha. also.... i👏love👏Holy👏Sack👏 a small handful of IW guards have the "sport" part down, Sack is pretty much the only one that consistently gets the "art" part right. always thought provoking. when the baby directors ask me about staging, im like, here's Sack '96. or here's Sack '18. study it, child! clear, interesting, musical, dynamic, ugh, subliiiime. why dey in their underwear? dunno, dont care, it's sooo expressive. they're baring their souls, hon! Blue Devils '96 can suck it, i don't care about scores!!!

Lots to unpack here! I’ve definitely been frustrated for some of the groups that have been reclassified mind season. Thanks for giving me so much to consider!

"a lot of people go into the open class because they want to escape that A class craziness" lolololol truer words never spoken.

oooo another one, falling down the rabbit hole over here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=801x6k7Y8jY

a vid where Karl and Dale talk about promotion process https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=95tF5BNLTmE preeetty much everything @Rubisco has already said. Karl talks about looking for groups that will achieve "marked success," which apparently = making semis at Dayton.

China Spring, Burnet, and Springtown will continue to be locks until a director change happens. Expect to see Alvarado and Gatesville to continue to make strides in the upcoming years. You can also never count out Kennedale, Fredericksburg, and Robinson, they will always be contenders. Keep an eye on for Jarrell, they've had an impressive trajectory since bumping up to 4A.

wait what's this, CyWoods in 2nd at Austin finals w/ an 82+??? who woulda thought??? who, i wonder..... .... oook i'll stop now. hahahahaha. aggressive Robyn dance by Westlake ftw. hope y'all got ur drank on last wknd. lotsa 5 turns girls and solo rifle boys. a shot at the end of twhs for spelling out a word. glad they added a lil personality w/ the carting of the girl at the end. but i wanna know what's bein' delivered. what's in the booooox?! is it Goop's severed head? they should deliver a snowglobe of Earth to the girl doing the arabesque at the end and she can be like, oh is this the next planet we're going to? like 50 bucks on Amazon. im just assuming they're from outer space. woodlands world relocation services. they should be announced that way. i mmmay go to Klein Collins for tcgc. not sure. kind of a trip. the big AC will probably overtake em in rankings with late season scores but they've got 6 weeks to add and clean so imma be curious.

1 Tarpon Springs HS Tarpon Springs, FL 85.700 3 91.700 2 The Woodlands HS The Woodlands, TX 86.000 4 90.500 3 Avon HS Avon, IN 84.300 3 90.300 4 Carmel HS Carmel, IN 80.000 1 89.000 5 Miamisburg HS Miamisburg, OH 81.300 3 87.300 6 Arcadia HS Arcadia, CA 78.200 3 84.200 7 Kiski Area HS Vandergrift, PA 79.300 4 83.800 8 Moe and Gene Johnson HS Buda, TX 78.000 4 82.500 9 Center Grove HS Greenwood, IN 72.900 1 81.900 10 Northview HS Brazil, IN 71.200 1 80.200 10 Marvin Ridge HS Waxhaw, NC 74.200 3 80.200 12 Fishers HS Fishers, IN 73.400 3 79.400 13 Warren Central HS Indianapolis, IN 69.600 1 78.600 14 Chino Hills HS Chino Hills, CA 72.300 3 78.300

A few anticipated changes to the standings, assuming I did this right. I know they come out officially tomorrow, but I always enjoy trying to figure them out in advance. Onyx up to 2nd in IW (tied w/ Paramount) ORIGINS up to 5th in IW Mirage up to 6th in IW Invictus entering at 11th in IW TWHS up to 2nd in SW Moe and Gene Johnson entering at 8th in SW (based on prelims score) Kiski Area entering at 7th in SW ORIGINS Open dropping to 6th in IO Westlake entering at 6th in SO Pearland would be ranked 1st in SA, if they were going to Dayton.

oh what's this, CyWoods is third with an 80 and not the 68 they got just last weekend? hmmmmmm.... wait a sec, who was right about them again?... oh yeah... that's right... it was ME! hahahaha. twilight zone, i toldja!

Good job by Mt. Pleasant varsity. They are the sole guard from the vast wasteland of military bands in Northeast Texas that compete in WGI events. Correction: Pine Tree from Longview competes in WGI as well.

Very exciting day! Home for spring break so I’m gonna try and catch as many groups as possible! Best of luck to everyone!!!

Hello @stellamo! Yes, it is confirmed. WGI will not publish revised schedules until Thursday’s prior to the Regional. If you go to the 2023 Current Entries for WGI Austin (wgi.org), you will notice that the classification changes are noted there (Flower Mound now in SW; Jordan in SO). Enjoy the show!

No way to know how this will affect the finals in these competitions until this continues to happen for a few years. What it may do is give the groups that don't do well at BOA and do do well at State a better opportunity to make a finals every year. It's a lot of travelling and expense to do this every year and that may be the biggest factor in any changes in attendance. Personally as a fan, I prefer to watch the BOA competitions as they are the full experience of the marching arts. State is a subset of them.

Right now, Palm Desert Charter Middle School is tied for 6th place overall in Scholastic A Group Standings. The standings are only for groups heading to WGI Worlds. Will be interesting to see how well they can do come April. Possible top 10 finish if they just continue cleaning.

Considering McKinney North being very close to Aledo at BOA Waco and on their good run at Area last year had them well ahead of Lone Star, I can see them making finals on bottom half.

Cy-Fair indoor percussion has been promoted to world class

I cant wait for next season!! As a clements allumni would love for them to do great but all the other bands in this are also very good. 7-8 bands you can make a arguemnt for making state.

See you there! And good luck to your son!

Wow! I know I was very impressed with them in Houston and I was so happy to see them on the schedule for Austin! What is it with these brand new schools being SO good SO quickly??!!

I was just about to come here and talk about this too! I’m so glad Mr. Peña went live on Instagram while I was on there and I got the opportunity to see the Palm Desert Charter MS perform their show. It’s just WOWWWW. I mean that thing is fantastic! I’ll definitely be watching on FloMarching on Saturday and I can’t wait to see these kids live at WGI Worlds in April! This show is going to be brilliant by then!