2022 WGI Discussion Thread (Non-Face-Mask Edition?)

[Rubisco]

Scores have (finally) been posted. Some really massive ones. Westlake won National A with a 94.540. Wow! From a double panel with mostly active WGI judges. They're probably feeling pretty good about nationals right now.

I'm mostly in agreement with the general groupings of the A guard placements. I would have had Grand Oaks a little higher. I would have had Churchill ahead of Rouse, and The Woodlands JV in 4th ahead of Clear Brook. TWHS JV was actually top 3 in both skills captions, but got tanked in design analysis, like 11th place. A little odd, and not in line with recent scores. But I also watched it from much closer up.

I was able to drop in for the last part of McNeil, along with Johnson, Origins Open, and The Woodlands world. Johnson in particular floored me, and they scored a massive 92. The show has such an infectious joyous energy. And that performance tonight was spectacular. So much so that I no longer think it's a sure thing Kiski Area wins in scholastic open this year. Now, I still love that show. It just has a very different, more nervous energy, and I'm wondering if Johnson's show might connect better.

Origins Open and The Woodlands world were both great (just try not to drop that flag exchange at the end!) and scored over 91s. All 10 judges had TWHS over 90. I'm beginning to think that the 3rd to 5th grouping in scholastic world in my head (TWHS, Miamisburg, Tarpon) may need to be expanded to 2nd to 5th and include Carmel. Carmel scored a 91.5 tonight in Indiana state finals, essentially the same as TWHS, whose show I find more enjoyable, although Carmel is VERY skilled.

Next week is North Texas championships, then another week until WGI World Championships.

[LeanderMomma]

On 3/25/2022 at 2:12 PM, Rubisco said:

TCGC State Finals is tomorrow! It's worth a watch, as long as the quality of the stream on Flo isn't too awful.

It was perhaps the best I’ve ever experienced from Flo!  😱

[LeanderMomma]

20 hours ago, Rubisco said:

Westlake is the number one nationally seeded group. Not hard to see why

I’m crazy in love with this show!  I have it recorded so I can watch it over and over. 😁

[packwick]

15 hours ago, Rubisco said:

TWHS JV was actually top 3 in both skills captions, but got tanked in design analysis, like 11th place. A little odd, and not in line with recent scores.

i can't imagine the staff caring much about a somewhat sucky design score. the point of a JV group besides personal growth is developing skills for the varsity group. from that standpoint they probably exceeded expectations, especially considering the strength of the A class in Texas this year. they didn't even start out in National A this season, so...

[Rubisco]

Congrats to Seven Lakes on finishing 2nd place today at WGI Atlanta finals! As I recall, that show is rather... uh... spicy!

[Rubisco]

Looks like WGI has already posted the final standings, which they'll use to create the prelims schedule at Dayton. Here are where the Texas groups stand heading into the contest. These are NOT necessarily where the groups will actually place, and are often based on scores given on different weeks with different panels.

Scholastic A

Westlake HS - 1st

Friendswood HS - 3rd

Bridgeland HS - 8th

Southlake Carroll HS - 14th

Katy HS - 43rd

Pine Tree HS - 76th

Klein Oak HS - 84th

Independent A

Glory Independent - 4th

Omega - 32nd

UA - 48th

Scholastic Open

Moe and Gene Johnson HS - 3rd

Coppell HS - 18th

McKinney HS - 22nd

Dawson HS - 27th

Klein Oak HS - 29th

Eastlake HS - 35th

Independent Open

ORIGINS Open - 3rd

Undaunted - 16th

Redemption Guard - 22nd

ATX Winterguard - 30th

Scholastic World

The Woodlands HS - 3rd

Independent World

ORIGINS - 10th

Invictus - 11th

Mirage Performance Ensemble - 19th

 

It looks like James E. Taylor might have withdrawn. Didn't see them in scholastic open.

Scholastic A should take 20 units to finals. The others should take 15 units to finals.

[Rubisco]

Oh, also, James Bowie and Mount Pleasant appear to have withdrawn.

[Rubisco]

Prelims schedules and judging panels for Dayton have been posted.

https://www.wgi.org/color-guard/world-championships-cg/world-championships-schedules-cg/

It looks like all 16 participating SW groups will be in finals. That makes sense. It would be kind of crummy to exclude only one group.

I was watching Oviedo (scholastic open #2 rank) and Tarpon Springs from the FFCC championships on YouTube earlier today. (The contest was on Sunday.) That arena is BIG and eats up the guard floors. Oviedo reminded me of Pflugerville. A smaller guard, only 9 members, but they make the most of it. The show seems to be about fall seasonal changes, but I wasn't paying very close attention to the music. The costumes are very interesting and the guard very skilled. Tarpon's show will be a crowd favorite, probably. I thought the energy and crowd reaction might elevate them a little bit score-wise, and they got an 87.3 from a panel consisting entirely of WGI judges, which is great, but I'm not convinced they'll be medaling at Dayton this year. This show, like a lot of Tarpon shows both on the marching field and off, is kind of like a blockbuster movie. Like, it's very flashy and has a lot of stuff in it and has energy to spare and can be very engaging at times, but maybe isn't the most elegant, mature, or artful thing in the world. Maybe I'm too highbrow. I feel like the show is a bit chaotic and colorless when viewed from high up (which is maybe on purpose), and several of their competitors are doing more with less. That being said, they're still one of the best groups this year, and I'd be a little surprised to see them outside of the top half of finals, but I think other underdog groups like Fishers could maybe pose a challenge, particularly in the upstairs captions.

[packwick]

puhraise Jeebus, i've finally got some free time to catch up on some of these 2022 guards. figurin' out what to record at wooorlds. this is my olympics, guys.

y'all, i watched your favorite, coppell. this show was definitely designed by somebody fierce. LOVE it. haha. hopefully they can clean it up enough for finals.

i think avon's show is very nice. though they seem to be cutting some corners this year compared to other years when they've been magnificent. their weapon line is only 6 members out of 20, less than 1/3rd, when the other top groups have more like 1/2. they've also got a group of performers that don't pick up any equipment until the very last flag feature.

carmel's show is impressive. i can see why you'd find it austere though. i contemplate the unbearable lightness of being every day tho, so yeah. kinda my thing. give me my Sartre fix.

arcadia's show is super pretty. have you seen it yet?

diamante's performers are rockin' it, but "it" is an Onyx pastiche. and the music sounds like generically urgent television drama music. in my head i see Gillian Anderson hunched over an interrogation room table demanding to know where the bodies are buried. TELL ME!

[Rubisco]

11 hours ago, packwick said:

in my head i see Gillian Anderson hunched over an interrogation room table demanding to know where the bodies are buried. TELL ME!

LOL. You seem pretty dead set on corrupting my perspective on some of these shows this year. I'm going to have to fight the urge to see Agent Scully the next time I watch that show. 😄

 

10 hours ago, MissRosa said:

Do you ever capitalize the beginning of your sentences or use proper grammar? I'm genuinely curious.

I don't want to make any rash assumptions, because I don't know for sure, but it all seems a little performative, doesn't it? This person actually seems very sharp.

[Rubisco]

To respond to the Avon comment, I think they're being very smart about things this year. They know how the game is played and are playing it well. But I also think they may have had bigger issues than the other groups with recruiting during the pandemic, or something similar to that. The size of the weapon line is a little disappointing, but they hide it well by spacing the members out a lot for the full floor tosses and interspersing them with flags.

[Guard in my Blood]

Is Daniel Wiles still directing Avon?  It's been a few years since I left Indy.

[Rubisco]

NTCA championships start tomorrow. A two-day event! It will be streamed on Flo.

[INbandfan]

Greetings to all in the TX band world...

Daniel Wiles is still at Avon.  

[Rubisco]

Congrats to Rock Hill, Marcus, and Flower Mound for winning A, Open, and World at yesterday's NTCA championships!

I'm kicking myself for not catching Rock Hill. I did get to see Independence again. (The last time I saw them was the 1st Dallas regional.) I think the show was called The Rain Before The Storm, or something similar. The set was very detailed, and with the costumes gave me a very prairie home vibe. Very cozy sounds of rain and thunder were mixed with a country ballad. They had what I think was a storm shelter in the lower right corner of the floor with an elevated roof that one of the members performed a toss sliding down from. Super impressive. This show was definitely cleaner than when I saw it last time. They just barely got edged out by Marcus. A tenth of a point, I think.

[Rubisco]

WGI World Championships in Dayton start tomorrow! Good luck to all competing units!

Prelims for all classes are tomorrow. Semis for all classes are on Friday, with A class finals on Friday night. Open and World class finals are on Saturday.

[packwick]

u have any predictions?

in most classes i don't see anything quite as obvious as BA's BOA Nats win. you could see that one from space, even before St. Louis.

[dylan123]

1 hour ago, packwick said:

u have any predictions?

in most classes i don't see anything quite as obvious as BA's BOA Nats win. you could see that one from space, even before St. Louis.

Very excited to see who can medal. It’s looking like in A class we could have Westlake and Friendswood potentially medal or Bridgeland can even sneak back up. SO as Johnson and IO has Origins Open who are both having a very strong year! I’m also wondering if The Woodlands can hold on to that medal spot and bring home the first World class medal in Texas history! It’s going to be such a great week!

[Rubisco]

It's hard to know for sure without seeing all the guards in the same venue, but the Texas groups should be excited. Texas has sent several strong contenders, and there's a possibility that they'll medal in every scholastic class, which Texas guards haven't done before.

As far as actual predictions... I would give Pride of Cincinnati another gold medal over Diamante in Independent World, assuming Diamante as the default 2nd place group. There are several other IW shows I haven't seen yet.

Avon has maintained a solid lead over the Carmel/The Woodlands/etc. cluster and is the front runner in SW. The show has a very classic emotional swell that will translate in effect. That being said, I was curious about the accuracy of the 1.5 point seeding increases and crunched the average point increase per week at WGI (or mostly WGI judged) shows for each of the SW groups (only 16 of them). First of all, the average increase was around 2.2 points, so 1.5 is a bit conservative. But then for kicks I extended each group's score out to "week 10" and was surprised to see the scores narrow at the top. The Woodlands and Avon were neck and neck, 97.01 to 96.96. I'd be surprised to see that happen, and for me TWHS is a bit of a wild card because they haven't competed against any groups directly the entire season.

Scholastic A is always kind of a cluster F, for lack of a better phrase. Westlake pulled away recently score-wise, but Friendswood did beat them at Austin, and when you add groups like Somerset Academy, things get more complicated.

I prefer both Kiski Area and Moe and Gene Johnson to Oveido, based on YouTube vids. I really like both shows and would be fine with either winning in Scholastic Open. Kiski Area dominated a very competitive field at Indy, so I'd give them the edge. But there are many others I haven't seen.

Exciting weekend for sure!

[Rubisco]

Congrats to Johnson and ORIGINS Open for coming out on top in their prelims rounds! Halfway through SO prelims, Johnson is in 2nd overall. (The other half of prelims is like 4 hours after the first half, which is just bad scheduling.) ORIGINS Open is in 3rd overall with one more round to go. Scores for both guards are a bit lower than expected, although scores tend to improve significantly beyond prelims. Kiski in 1st in SO with a 90.6, Johnson with an 87.9. Both had excellent runs, but I think Kiski's guard definitely has the deeper vocabulary. Actually, Kiski's score is less than a point higher than it was 3 weeks ago at WGI Indy. So this prelims is kind of low scoring all around.

[Origin]

Miamisburg is incredible. Love that show so much.

Norwin was so much better than just a few weeks ago, which was awesome to see. 

[Rubisco]

Norwin definitely made me do a little bit of a double take. Much improved performance from them. And the floor and colors are so nice to look at. They tell a strange story, for sure. It seems like mythology.

I actually would have had Arcadia ahead of Tarpon. They definitely made it clear that we were starting the top seeded half of the block. Less than a point between them and Tarpon for now.

[Origin]

TWHS was so clean and confident. It also helps that their show really connects with the audience. 

[J-Mike16]

I am watching the SA groups and so far I have seen some really good groups! However the competition is slowly starting to get behind from the schedule times.

[Rubisco]

It looks like Avon and The Woodlands received the only 2 genuine standing ovations in SW prelims. Superb performances from both. Most of the shows in SW this year are quite serious, so the ones that are more rousing and have a general audience appeal stick out more for me.