Recap Rundown: 7/3-7/9
Carolina Crown vs Boston Crusaders, Blue Knights vs Mandarins, and Gold vs Blue Devils B - a lot to recap from the second full week of the 2022 season!
Hello and welcome to the second edition of Recap Rundown! In this weekly article we take a look at scores and recaps from the previous week’s shows and trends and rankings as the season progresses. Feel free to follow along with this interactive dashboard powered by Google Data Studio. Here, you can find a number of tables and charts that break down the season’s scores by a number of metrics such as shows, corps, class, date, and even caption scores.
Let’s dive in!
Sunday kicked off the week with a triple-header slate with events in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts. After debuting in Ohio on Saturday, Music City made their way west to meet up with Cavaliers, Crossmen, and Colts in Lisle, IL. The Nashville-based corps finished with a 64.15, topping Colts in General Effect by 0.3 and finishing only 1.25 behind them. Elsewhere on the score sheet, Cavaliers handily won their second show of the season, besting Crossmen by over 5 points and improving their score from the night before by over a point.
The Cedarburg, WI show was a “Wisconsin-only” affair as the state’s two active DCI corps - Blue Stars and Madison Scouts - were the only World Class corps in competition. Blue Stars beat Scouts by 7.15 for their first win of the season, continuing an upward climb of a full seven point improvement in less than a week from their debut in Detroit. However, their percussion caption continues to struggle as they finished half a point behind Scouts despite winning all other captions by 0.9 or more.
The Beanpot - arguably the most uniquely named annual event on the DCI calendar - was nearly a rinse-and-repeat from the Quincy show the night before. The same five corps performed and while no placements changed, Cadets broke 70 and Spartans broke 60 for the first time in the season. Most notably, Boston Crusaders won The Beanpot for the first time ever in corps history, a special victory for the corps performing near its home base.
As usual, DCI took off the 4th of July to allow corps to march in various parades around the country. Competition resumed on Tuesday with a show in Fresno, CA that featured the debuts of Blue Devils B, Vanguard Cadets, as well as Mandarins returning to competition for the first time since June 26. Mandarins certainly made some noise in their return, beating Blue Knights for the first time in corps history while Gold achieved a similar feat against BDB in Open Class.
Wednesday was one of the busier slates of the week with three shows in Delaware, Ohio, and Iowa. The biggest highlight of the night goes to the Boston Crusaders who finished with a 78.15 in Delaware and shot up to the top of the leaderboard for the first time all season. BAC has been enjoying success in large part due to their percussion section who scored a 16.0 at the show, becoming the first caption of any corps in the 2022 season to place in Box 4 territory.
DCI briefly returned to the Hoosier state for a small, four corps show on Thursday. The event was a milestone for Phantom Regiment who returned to competition for the first time in nearly a week after a brief covid outbreak within the corps. Phantom did not miss a beat in their return, finishing in second place with a 74.15 and shooting back up to 8th place in the overall standings. In a place below, Crossmen broke 70 for the first time in the season as they continue their push towards trying to make finals for a seventh consecutive season.
A busy weekend with six shows in two nights kicked off on Friday with the long awaited debut of Troopers in Camas, Washington against Blue Knights and Academy. “America’s Corps” finished third with a 65.75, and nearly replicated their score on Saturday, slipping slightly by a tenth to 65.65. The three corps (along with Open Class corps Columbians) finish their three day Washington mini-tour on Monday night before making their way east to Boise on Tuesday where they will meet up with Mandarins.
No other major changes in placements occurred elsewhere on Friday night, however Saturday saw the Carolina Crown’s return to competition for the first time in a week and first matchup of the season against Boston Crusaders. While BAC took first in the guard and percussion captions, Crown took first in the remaining six captions, en route to a one point victory. The two corps match up twice more in the coming week in Georgia and Tennessee, so that battle will certainly be one to keep an eye on.
In Open Class, Blue Devils B & C, Vanguard Cadets, Columbians, Heat Wave, and Raiders all made their season debuts, while Spartans topped the class leaderboard by week’s end. Through only the first two and a half weeks of the season, Open Class competition appears to be more competitive than ever with the top four corps separated by only 4 points. Things will only get more interesting by this time next week as The Battalion, Les Stentors, Southwind, and Louisiana Stars all debut in the coming week.
That does it for this week! In the coming week, we have another full week with 18 shows, a number of them being west of the Mississippi in states such as Idaho, Colorado, Minnesota, and Utah to name a few. A special show to look forward to will be Saturday’s night show in Whitewater, WI - the site of the first ever DCI World Championship 50 years ago this year.
Until next time!