On March 29, the Varsity Color Guard attended the Texas Color Guard Circuit (TCGC) Scholastic National Area (SNA) State Championship at Texas A&M University College Station. With their highest score of the season, the team finished their season in sixth out of 10 in the blue division with a score of 83.600. Among both the red and blue division of the SNA class, the team came eighth out of 19 teams, qualifying for the state championship for the first time in six years.
In the weeks leading up to the competition, the Varsity was ranked seventh overall and third in the previous red division in the West Area, giving the team hope for a high placement at this competition. Scores are highly variable in TCGC due to the judges’ differing opinions, making them unreliable for gauging improvement for future competitions. However, the team felt as though their skills had been improving exponentially with no observable plateau.
“I thought that we were all very anxious, but we eventually got through that nervousness,” Lara Pinto ’26 said. “When we were in line about to go on to the performance, I think we all focused up and were able to give our best.”
With how different the Reed Arena is to other venues, performers were nervous about having their last competitive performance in such unique circumstances. The arena’s blinding lights and high ceiling can be disorienting for performers in comparison to other performing spaces, especially when perceiving depth underneath tosses. The audience space is also significantly larger with judges clearly visible to performers. Despite the struggles presented by the arena, the team still had a successful run and bonded over their last competitive run of the season.
“I think there were positive and negative aspects of the performance area,” Ren Willingham ‘26 said. “Positive being that it gave me more of an adrenaline rush because of the new environment, negative being that the lights made it hard to perform.”
Unlike previous competitions where only captains attended the awards ceremony, the entire team attended the ceremony adorning glowing hats, sticks and necklaces. This competition had a full retreat, where all of the teams present at the competition attended the awards ceremony to celebrate the art of Color Guard and all the effort the teams put into the season. Full retreat made finishing the season at state all the more special, as all of the team was present to celebrate the moment.
“There were a lot of people packed really close together which was really fun, but also kind of chaotic,” Raymond Wiener ‘26 said. “The entire atmosphere made the event feel important, and it was amazing that I got to be there with all my friends.”
Now that their competitive season has concluded, the Color Guard program has started to prepare for their independent spring projects, which they will be performing for the Westwood community on May 27.
