HHS Winter Guard Championships at NKU: Birds take fifth
On Saturday, March 26, Highlands High School Color Guard participated in the Color Guard Tristate Marching Arts Championships at Northern Kentucky University. They performed in Scholastic Regional A class in the BB&T Arena.
To wrap up the season, the Color guard placed fifth out of ten against the other color guards that also performed in that category. This is the first time in 7 years that HHS Color Guard had received 80 or more points out of 100.
Guard members include Eighth-grader Zoey Beets, Junior Isabelle Brooker, Freshman Lianne Guttadauro, Eighthgrader Sam Hass, Seven grader Virginia Hobson, Freshman Emma Loutsenhizer, Sophomore Anna McCoy, Sophomore Macy Laur, Eighth-grader Avery Nieporte, Eighth-grader Bailey O’Day, and Junior James Wang.
We have a variety of grades in HHS Guard this year from Seventh-grade to Junior. This will be the first year that middle schoolers are on the high school team.
The guard performed their show: In the Bone Garden, at Northern Kentucky University.
“For the dance position and flag feature, I just have to widen my seconded position,” said O’ Day before the run.
Approaching performance time the Guard is on the ready line getting their lucky starburst, they get one every competition on the ready line, The starburst is supposed to boost our confidence. Their hearts are beating and nerves are raking up.
HHS Color Guard Instructor Sheena Demoss tends to get emotional during competition days, especially at the Bone Garden competition since it’s going to be the last performance this year.
“I’m going to start crying even though you are not even performing yet,” said Demoss on the ready line, before the run.
Fortunately, the Color Guard did drop a gun and any hiccups in the set were recovered from quickly yet swiftly Although the team felt the performance wasn’t as good as they did practicing in the Highlands Field House. A factor that very well might have contributed to the nervousness of the team could’ve been the huge audience or the big dance floor.
Overall, the highlights of the season included: At their first competition, the team placed third. They later got bumped up from regional A2 to A at Lafayette High School.
The team that placed first place in the regional A2 class, was awarded with an enormous size of mini M&Ms by the judges.
Next season is going to be full of even more improvements. With working on improving the tosses and learning a new routine, there are sure to be more regional performances in the future, see you on the floor next year!
