ST. GEORGE, UT — Hillcrest’s marching band had its biggest competition of the season this past weekend. They worked countless hours to get everything perfect for the competition and ended up securing seventh place out of ten bands, which is a significant improvement compared to last year, when they finished tenth.
The preparation for a marching band competition is no joke. They work long and hard hours, starting at the beginning of the year until the season is over. Junior marching band member Carrie Santillan goes on to explain what the preparation looks like for a competition like this: “The first two weeks before school starts, we have practice every day for eight hours, but we have a one-hour lunch period called band camp, and it’s just preparing the basic fundamentals.” Along with the eight-hour practices before school starts, they do three- to three-and-a-half-hour-long practices three times a week during the school year.
All the practices really paid off and helped them to improve from last year. “In comparison to a lot of our last seasons and the attitude this year, I think it went overall very well and that it was one of our best runs of our show,” says junior Brayden Barker. These kinds of competitions rarely go exactly as expected, but in this one, they all put everything into it and really showed people that the Hillcrest marching band has the potential to do great things. Barker states, “I wouldn’t say it was exactly how we wanted it to go, but I think overall there were no major mistakes, and I feel like everyone did their best.”
Santillan states, “I wouldn’t say every single person does perfectly in state. Our director warned us that your performance in St. George won’t be perfect. For example, I dropped my air blade during the first movement, which is not something I usually do, but it’s just a mistake I made. So I will say it’s never perfect, but you will make mistakes during the competition, but it will be a lot better than you may think 90% of the time.”
The competition was challenging, but Hillcrest demonstrated significant improvement compared to its performance last year. The band’s preparation and practice contributed to a stronger showing, and the team plans to continue refining their performance in future competitions.