crunchycookie3

Unless I’m mistaken, percussion and guard captions rarely factor into the score.

I believe that UIL passed a rule change that if there is a points tie for the last advancing spot to state, all groups who tie advance to state. Did I just imagine that though?

It actually seems like a FANTASTIC year to be a Texas bubble band at this contest. I only count seven absolute locks for finals, with the last 7 spots being a fight between Leander, Round Rock, Bell, Wakeland, Westlake, Timber Creek, Rouse, Buda Johnson, Bowie, Keller Central, Wylie East, and Bridgeland. It will be nice to see some old faces and some new groups in finals!

Even six slots to state isn’t enough for this area anymore. SMBC finalist-caliber bands always seem to be left behind in this area. I’m going to guess 5 or 6 to state this year. The first 5 seem pretty solid: Keller, Wax, Coppell, Bell, Timber Creek, and a bloodbath for the 6th spot between Dville, Carroll, and KC. With the new rule, I’m hoping for a 3-way tie for that last spot!

This seems to have quickly become one of the deepest regionals. Incredible! It seems that there’s a good deal of discussion for champion to be between Keller and Wakeland- but ultimately I think Prosper, Hendrickson, Waxahachie, Bell, Keller Central, Timber Creek, and Carroll all have legitimate claims to the top spot as well. I have a strong feeling the top 10 or so bands will score very close to one another.

Might as well add the Bedford Regional as well as qualifying for state in the two DFW areas.

This is the 2nd time a Texas Band has made Grand National Finals after missing out on a Texas Regional Finals (Round Rock in Austin 2019 and SLC in Bedford 2022.) Texas is fantastic.

Hebron always impresses me by being able to join the ranks of these schools despite being at a *relative* economic disadvantage compared to the rest of the finals programs. Good for them! Still, I would love to see programs like Bell, Cy-Fair, or Duncanville push into this tier as well. Time will tell!

This is the first time LD Bell has attended the SMBC and missed finals since 1998. Very bummed for those kids, but they had a great season with a great show. Super excited to see the dominance of DFW bands at this contest (6 from DFW, 4 from Austin, 2 from San Antonio and Houston). Areas represented in finals: B (3 bands), C (3 bands), D (4 bands!!), E (1 band), F (1 band), and H (2 bands). A bit shocked to see no Area I bands in finals, but congrats to all!

I don’t believe there is a top-half/bottom-half split for UIL. You just perform based on the order of that sheet if you make finals.

Nearly confirmed by Lake Travis this year (8th at STLSR, 30th at SASR.) Also, a bit shocked that panel 1 judges allowed a 4-point gap between Cedar Ridge and Westlake. That allowed panel 2 to slot 7 bands between the two. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely do not miss the days of one panel to judge them all. Both formats definitely have their drawbacks. Also, a bit dumbfounded to see Cy-Fair in 26th place—especially with a 7th place score in ensemble music. This contest is crazy! Placing in the top 40 at this contest is more difficult than making semis at nats! Congrats to all!

absolutely atrocious ❤️

Not even mentioning Cy-Fair this year is a crime. I feel like they might have an even more solid shot at finals than Bell, Keller, Timber Creek, and even TWHS.

This is LD Bell’s first state appearance since 2016, and Duncanville’s first return to state since 2018. Congratulations to both of these incredible programs!

This is a great resource! Thanks for sharing. I think 14 bands advance to finals for 6a SMBC since there are 42 bands in prelims.

That third block is looking like finalist central to me. Very stacked!

1. Coppell 2/3. Bell and Keller 4. Waxahachie 5/6. Timber Creek and SLC With Duncanville, Highland Park, and Keller Central giving TCHS and SLC a solid fight for those last two spots.

First half of this area (Region 23) had region today! All 9 Katy Schools + Heights, Alief Taylor, Elsik, and Westside all advanced for a total of 13 bands so far. It looks like there are 16 other 6a varsity bands competing at Region 27 on Saturday. Even if all of these bands get a 1, it looks like we’ll be seeing 5 bands to state from Area I.

Region 23 bands earning a division 1 rating: 6a- Katy Jordan Tompkins Seven Lakes James E. Taylor Paetow Mayde Creek Morton Ranch Cinco Ranch Alief Taylor Elsik Heights Westside 5a- Waltrip

Prosper + The W’s fighting it out in the top half. I love it!

Panel 1 Top 5- BA, Mustang, LDB, O’Fallon, and Lincoln (probably in that order) Panel 2 Top 5- Blue Springs, Bentonville, Lake Travis, Blue Springs South, Yukon Next 4- Grain Valley, Lindbergh, Southmoore (Panel 1) and Hernando (Panel 2)

With all due respect to the panel 1 bands, I think the next 4 will all come from panel 2. It looks simply way more stacked all through the bubble than panel 1. Panel 1 top 5- Reagan, CTJ, Flower Mound, Marcus, and either Cy-Fair or Round Rock Panel 2 top 5- Hebron, Vandegrift, Cedar Ridge, Cedar Park, and TWHS That’s still not acknowledging Vista Ridge, Coppell, Westlake, Westwood, Bell, and Rouse. It’s very possible we see a band like Vista Ridge or Coppell make it into finals as a next 4 band, but still be a top-half finalist.

As of tonight, we have the first round of bands advancing to Area B contest! Arlington, Cedar Hill, Lake Ridge, Legacy, Mansfield, Martin, Paschal, SGP, Boswell, Keller Central, Chisholm Trail, Fossil Ridge, Keller, North Crowley, Timber Creek, and Weatherford! That's 16 bands, guaranteeing at least 3 bands advancing to state from this area. Over the next week and a half, we'll hear results from regions 31 and 20 to finish out this area. That leaves Berkner, DeSoto, Duncanville, Highland Park, Irving, Lake Highlands, MacArthur, Nimitz, JJ Pearce, Richardson, Skyline, Waxahachie, Carroll, Coppell, Haltom, LD Bell, and Trinity for next week's region contests. 14 of these bands need to advance in order for Area B to send 6 to state. If 4 or more of these bands do not get a 1, then we'll only see 5 advance. Seeing 6 advance would be great, but that would still leave this as likely the most cut-throat area in the state.

If there was something wrong with how it was reported on texasmusicforms, it’s fixed now! I’m seeing a full sweeps from Aledo at region, which makes much more sense.