It’s official: “Little Red” is dead. On Saturday, November 9th, 2019, Sahuaro’s marching band performed at Buckeye High School in State Championships. Out of 30 bands, Sahuaro placed 16th with an overall score of 61.300. In General Effect, we placed 18th with a score of 16.838. We also got 18th in Music, with a score of 17.663. In Visual, we placed 5th with a score of 14.30. Auxiliary placed 17th with a score of 5.55 and Percussion placed 15th with a score of 6.95.

Waiting for our school’s name to be called at awards inflicted anxiety throughout the band. “Waiting for our call felt weird because there wasn’t any consistency with the scores this year and I was shocked at what we got, but I took it and was still happy with how we ended,” said Drum Major and Sahuaro senior, Joaquin Cota. “When we were called at champs, I was disappointed,” said mellophone player and sophomore, Justin Todd, “but it didn’t really matter to me all that much because I thought we did amazing.”

Many of us were left wondering: How did we go from 6th out of 32 bands to 16th our of 30 bands? Well, with different judges come different opinions and scores. So, after fixing things based on critiques from our judges, we had new judges with different opinions about our show. Not only that, but those judges hadn’t judged bands of our division (1A) all season.

Despite that, it was believed to be one of the best performances all season, and that our season was a success. Cota “thought the season went really well with all the adversity we had to face with getting music and drill late.”

Out of the five competitions we attended, we got 2nd place at Sahuartia, 2nd place at March the Ridge, 9th at UA Band Day, 1st at March In the Grove, and 16th at Championships. So overall, there were many huge accomplishments, including getting 1st place for the first time in over 5 years, which was the highlight of many band kids’ seasons. Not only did we place well, but we got 2 Percussion captions, 2 Visual captions, 1 General Effect caption, and 1 Music caption. “The highlight of the season was definitely winning first place at Walden Grove because not a single kid in our band has ever gotten first place before, even the seniors,” said Bethany Seal, junior and piccolo player.

With all the successes from this year, next season is looking up. “I feel really optimistic about next year’s season because we mostly got really good scores at competitions and I think we’re only going to get better,” said Todd. Cota believes, especially with the many achievements this year, that “next year is going to be such a ride and I can’t wait to come back and see the work put in for next year’s production!” Although we are losing quite a few amazing seniors, next year is full of capability and achievement.