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Posing in a kneel, Rachel Zhu ’26, Julia Gray ’28, Pio Antony ’27, and Soomin Oh ’27 play a difficult part of their music. The band had roughly a week to pull together some of the hardest parts of their show to be ready in time for TMC.
Courtesy of Owen Fowler'
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Preparing for their upcoming performance, the woodwinds carry guard-hiders up to the field’s end zone. Despite being exhausted from an early wake-up time, band members had to remain focused to do their best in finals.
Courtesy of Owen Fowler'
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Focused on the drum majors, Arya Pillai ’28 and Emilio Vidrio ’27 march across the field during finals. The band faced tough competition, and every member had to put in their best effort to stay together and in time.
Courtesy of Owen Fowler'
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During the early warm-up before prelims, Diego Sardan Toro ’26 focuses on his upcoming task to perform the best he can. “I feel like [at TMC] the band really was able to show off their hard work and skill in a more competitive setting against bands of a higher caliber,” he said.
Courtesy of Owen Fowler'
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With intense focus, Tanner Dean ’28 plays the vibraphone during prelims. The vibraphone is part of the front ensemble, the percussion instruments that stay stationary at the front of the field during a performance.
Courtesy of Owen Fowler'
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Holding her prop in place, Rachel Zhu ’26 stands with the other woodwinds as she waits to perform. The woodwinds are in charge of carrying props, called guard-hiders, on and off the field at each performance.
Courtesy of Owen Fowler'
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With hands full of garment bags and water jugs, Sean Ge ’27, Neel Kotichintala ’25, and Yunha Hwang ’25 walk off the buses together. After arriving at a competition, the percussion members are the first students to leave the buses so they can head to the truck and unload their equipment.
Courtesy of Owen Fowler'
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During the prelims performance, Alycia Chee ’26 poses with her flag and skirt outstretched.
Courtesy of Owen Fowler'
The final chord of Beethoven’s Ode To Joy rings out throughout the stadium before thunderous applause and a standing ovation. On Saturday, Oct. 12 the Westwood Warrior Band performed their 2024-2025 production, Timeless, at the Texas Marching Classic (TMC), where they placed eleventh with a score of 81.225.
“TMC was an amazing experience, with lots of memorable moments throughout the competition day,” Theo Wong ‘26 said. “As the last time Westwood attended TMC was in 2016, it was certainly an experience to be a part of the band that finally re-entered the incredibly competitive competition.”
TMC was the band’s second competition of the marching season. Compared to their first competition, TMC had a tougher lineup and scoring system with marching giants such as Vandegrift, Vista Ridge, and Rouse also in attendance.
“It turned out to be an extremely difficult competition, as seems to be the trend this year, with all of the band rosters for our upcoming competitions being full of very skilled groups, [competitions are] thus extremely competitive,” Samuel Fowler ‘25 said.
Despite the increased difficulty of the competition itself, the band still managed to put up a fight— even though they put together a critical part of their show together in one week.
“It was definitely a struggle to get Part Three of the show onto the field within a week,” Wong said. “While there were places for improvement throughout that movement of our show, overall as a band we were able to handle the fast-paced process well and our hard work was prevalent throughout the performance.”
Countless hours and focus from every student was required to put it all together, and the band pulled through, putting up a fight against the other bands.
“We certainly have some work to do, but I’m positive that work can be done if everyone contributes and locks in these next few weeks,” Fowler said. “This show has some of the most difficult music I’ve ever seen put on a marching field, so it’s certainly no easy task to make clean, but I trust we can pull through.”
The band’s next competition will be in three weeks on Saturday, Nov. 2., at the UIL Area D competition at Heroes Stadium in San Antonio.
“I believe having this long three week gap before our major competition will be crucial in getting us ready for Area,” Wong said. “There is a lot of pressure to make State this year as our area is really competitive and making back-to-back state qualifiers would be new for Westwood Band history. While there are spots to be improved particularly in our visual [category], I believe that we still have the capability to do extremely well at Area.”
