On Saturday October 13, the University of Arizona held their annual marching band competition: U of A Band Day. This year was slightly different though since the university was no longer the one running it. This year it was run by the Arizona Marching Band Association (AzMBA). Sahuaro almost wasn’t even accepted into the competition since they only allowed 40 bands and we were number 41 to get in. However, AzMBA decided to allow two more bands into the competition including Sahuaro.

Just like every morning, the marching band had a rehearsal prior to leaving for the competition. Although right as we ended the rehearsal, the rain started coming down – hard. The U of A already had plans in place for if the rain came down since their was a 90% chance of rain on Band Day. While the band was on the bus, the student teacher, Mr. Rubin, told us that Band Day was currently on “Plan C” which meant no marching. Instead the bands would play at a stand-still under a tent. The bands that performed before Sahuaro had to play under a tent. “It really sucks that this is my last Band Day and we can’t march,” said senior drum major Sean Pierce.

However, as soon as we started warming up, the band was told that the plans had changed and we were now under “Plan B” and were able to march. The band was just not allowed to bring props out to prevent water damage. The band was ecstatic and began working twice as hard during warmups. Yet, the band had never rehearsed getting on the field without the props, so in a rush, the band had to run through how to get on the field before going on. The performance went smoothly and the band in general felt pretty good about their performance.

When the awards were read, Sahuaro got sixth out of 12 and the band was pretty disappointed because they all thought we performed much better. When asked about how she reacted to the score, sophomore Amari Saavedra said, “Just silence. I was so disappointed. I felt like we played much better than what the score shows.” On Monday, it turned out that AzMBA did some math to make it so it was still fair to those bands that did not march. So, to finish off Band Day, Sahuaro got third place of the bands that did march and did the best of the TUSD bands in their division!

Sahuaro’s next competition is Championships on November 10 at Campo Verde High School.