Three national powers emerge victorious, many fall, and big upsets in Texas and Mississippi!
Brandon Show Choir ELITE
Overall Results
“SD” stands for Best Show Design.
1st: Jackson Prep “Reveillon” (BC/SD)
2nd: Madison Central “Reveille” (BV)
3rd: Northeast Jones “Gold Horizons”
4th: Grenada “Visions”
5th: Laurel “Showstoppers”
While Brandon didn’t feature finals, it did feature a 7,000-seat amphitheater and a set of overall placements. Jackson Prep crescendos its late-season push, taking a second straight Best Choreography award en route to their first win since 2018. Their Viva Las Vegas-themed show stole the attention away from the more highly-anticipated Madison Central-Grenada matchup. After losing to Grenada twice earlier this year, MC finally pulls through and beats them, although Reveille also ends the season on a run of three straight second-place finishes in the large mixed division. Northeast Jones ends its run under the direction of Dr. Bill Myers with a podium finish, tied with Mississippi State in February for its best finish of the year. Gold Horizons also won five of six middle division contests they entered this year. Laurel scores its first overall placement of the year and sandwiches four second-place division finishes in 2023 with wins to start and end the season.
Heart of America New York City
Final Results
GC: Los Alamitos “Sound FX” (BV/BC)
1RU: Marysville “Swingers Unlimited” (BB)
2RU: Carroll “Minstrel Magic”
3RU: Ankeny Centennial “Spectrum”
4RU: Daniel Hand “VIBE”
On paper, this looks like a Los Al year. Three straight wins to start off the season, and all have come against very good competition. However, they only won against John Burroughs at Hart because of a time penalty. Time will tell if an undefeated season holds, but time has told that they beat a massive field at HOA NYC. Marysville didn’t finish lower than second the entire season, stacking this on top of an impressively tough Ohio season. Carroll demonstrated the strength of the Indiana circuit – while their placements weren’t the best locally, they shined nationally. It may be a down year for Ankeny Centennial, but when the standard is going undefeated or close to it, finishing fourth at an HOA competition is still the dream of other programs. While it may seem like Daniel Hand fell short on paper, they remain the class of New England this year, and VIBE’s saloon backdrops are more authentic and fun than they are cheesy. In the womens finals, Carroll Select Sound took home vocals to knock of Los Al Soundtrax, handing Soundtrax their second loss of the season – the first time that has happened since 2018.
Rouse Capital City Showcase
Final Results
GC: Arlington “Choraliers”
1RU: Timber Creek “Aerodynamix”
2RU: Fort Worth Southwest “Southwest Effect” (BC)
3RU: Texas City “Soundsations” (BV)
4RU: Hebron “Harmony!”
5RU: Westwood “Rebelaires”
While Fort Worth Southwest may be Texas’ Next Big Thing, they will have to wait a little longer for the maiden grand championship. After a pair of fifth-place finishes to start the season and a rare miss on finals at Lone Star last month, Choraliers came storming back to take home the win at Rouse. It is their third win as a program and their second Rouse win following one in 2019. Timber Creek, who missed the placements their last time out as well, nabs their highest-ever program finish in second. The caption spread with Fort Worth Southwest getting choreo in third and Texas City getting vocals in fourth just goes to show how unpredictable Texas is. Hebron, headed by former Keller director Alex Carr, makes finals for the first time in history in fifth, and Westwood, perennially one of Iowa’s top 2A choirs, rounds out finals and also won the People’s Choice award, showing how much of an impact they made in Texas.
Show Choir Nationals
Finals Results
GC: Linn-Mar “10th Street Edition” (BV/BC/BB)
1RU: Homewood “The Network”
2RU: Findlay “First Edition”
3RU: Hastings “Riverside Company”
4RU: North Central “Counterpoints”
5RU: Mt. Zion “Swingsations”
Out of all the national powers at SCN (okay, besides the hosting Clinton Attaché), Linn-Mar came out with their undefeated streak intact. 10th Street’s show, set on the journey from the land of the living from the land of the dead, featured a lead role loosely based on Italian violinist Niccolo Paganini. Tejas Gururaja took home a prelim male solo award and a finals male performer award for his portrayal of Paganini. Homewood, after demolishing Alabama this year, made as good of a run as anybody and came up just shy in Scott Thorne’s farewell contest. Findlay was another group that saw an undefeated streak snapped, but Kevin Manley’s group are SCN veterans and performed very well. Hastings showed that this year was one of their better years, solidly repping the Upper Midwest before Bloomington Kennedy takes on FAME Finals. North Central is perhaps the upstart of the competition, going from sixth at ISSMA the week before to fifth here. Mt. Zion finishes out its freshman year under Erik Taylor by rounding out the finals field at Nationals, leaving a very high ceiling for the group in the future. Oak Mountain missed finals by six-tenths of a point, eerily reminiscent to when another Alabama group, Auburn, narrowly missed finals at SCN in 2019. However, OM got their glory in the womens division, with Muses taking home best choreo and the win over Homewood Nexus, who took best vocals and completed an Alabama 1-2.
West Virginia State Show Choir Contest
Overall Results
1st: Hurricane “Red Hot” (BV/BC)
2nd: Robert C. Byrd “Vocal Intensity”
3rd: Nitro “Showcats”
4th: Winfield “General Admission” (BB)
5th: Herbert Hoover “High Impact”
Like Brandon, West Virginia states engaged in the somewhat confusing practice of not having a finals round, but announcing an overall top five that only drew from the top two divisions of mixed competition. However, that is less confusing than what actually happened at the competition, which was thrown off schedule when a fallen tree cut power to the vast majority of Putnam County, West Virginia. Despite that, the host crew at Hurricane High School worked admirably to find a solution, and they did. While the win was never in doubt, second through fifth promised to be an exciting fight and it was. While perhaps not the headliner of the division, Robert C. Byrd finished a late-season surge by winning middle mixed ahead of Nitro’s Kentucky Derby-themed show. Winfield, fresh off three straight division wins, comes home third in the division but grabs their fifth band caption of the year, only losing out at Poca. In festival, Poca claimed seven of eight captions en route to the win.
There is still plenty more season left to go! Check back midweek for the next Comps of the Week!
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