Recap Rundown: DCI World Championships Prelims
A very busy first day at Lucas Oil Stadium saw a lot of excitement, a few shakeups in placements, and gave us plenty to talk about!
Hello and welcome to Recap Rundown! In this edition, we’re going to recap yesterday’s very full show at World Championships Prelims!. 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.
It’s officially World Championships week and we couldn’t be more excited! Drum corps is back in Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Stadium! A full show of 35 units performed yesterday and it was amazing to have a full World Championships Prelims day for the first time in three years.
The day kicked off bright and early at 10:30 AM local time with Colt Cadets and the first block of six Open Class corps. Colt Cadets and Raiders carried over their close battle from Open Class prelims earlier in the week as Raiders came out on top by only six tenths. Both corps had great final performances of their season and can feel proud knowing that their scores of 65 were by far the highest scores for bottom placing corps since DCI combined World and Open class in prelims starting in 2011. It is a true testament as to how competitive the season has been and how strong every Open Class corps was this year.
Elsewhere in the block, placements mostly followed those seen in Open Class finals. The one shakeup was Les Stentors passing 7th Regiment to move up a spot, though the recap shows that this was as a result of a two point penalty given to 7th Regiment. Meanwhile, River City Rhythm fell just a half tenth short of finishing with a 70, while Louisiana Stars eclipsed the milestone score by only 0.025.
Legends kicked off the second block with their incredibly powerful and emotional production of “May Your Light Shine Forever.” Though they will miss out on making semifinals for only the second time since 2015, they can feel proud knowing how much they accomplished in such a short competitive season. They also scored less than two tenths behind Southwind and The Battalion, making for an incredibly close spread amongst the two corps. The Battalion, in their first performance ever at Lucas Oil Stadium, moved up a spot to finish 27th and only two spots out of semifinals.
The Calgary Stampede Showband raised some eyebrows earlier this week when the International Class group from Canada scored well enough at Open Class Finals and Prelims to seed them in the top 25 heading into prelims. Unfortunately, they fell just short, finishing in 26th and about seven tenths behind Jersey Surf. Regardless, the Showband had an impressive week in their competitive debut and may have opened some discussion as to what the future of drum corps could look like with the inclusion of woodwinds.
Jersey Surf had a late season surge and finished with a 74.825, just enough for 25th and the final spot in semifinals. Despite a rough year for the corps off the field, given a smaller membership and tight financial situation, Surf faced their adversity and showed that they deserve a spot in semifinals for the second straight season. Additionally, their placement appearance helps mark a second straight season that all World Class corps will be competing in semifinals.
The top 5 from Open Class finals saw no change in placements with Pacific Crest and Genesis finishing in between Vanguard Cadets and Gold. Meanwhile, as had been projected, Guardians finished 24th and will be making their first ever appearance in semifinals. Genesis also benefited from a nice bump in score to barely pass Pacific Crest by a tenth to finish 19th, with Gold trailing in 21st by less than half a point. The three corps will certainly be looking forward to a great final performance on Friday that will hopefully allow them all to pass the 80 point milestone.
The 15th through 17th grouping of Madison Scouts, The Academy, and Music City saw no change as Music City still continues to score within pass distance of The Academy. Music City also broke 80 for the first this season, and ever in corps history. The Nashville corps will look to conclude its historic season on Friday to finish with a new high score and the highest placement in the corps’ 13 year history.
The 11th through 14th grouping is where things got interesting. Colts finished comfortably ahead of the pack with a 87.213 which should be enough for them to officially clinch their first appearance in finals since 2007 on Friday. The spread between Troopers and Crossmen had the whole stadium buzzing as Troopers passed Crossmen for the first time this season to finish in the 12th spot by the slimmest of margins - only 0.05. This sets up an incredible showdown in semifinals that we have not seen in a long time for the 12th and final spot in finals. And though Blue Knights fell to 14th, they too are still within striking distance and could even move back up a spot. These four corps are certainly performances not to miss on Friday as they will all be fighting to keep their season alive for another day.
In the final block and 11 remaining corps, only two other placement swaps occurred. The season-long back and forth battle between Phantom Regiment and Mandarins continued on as Phantom moved back ahead for the first time since the Southeastern Championship two weeks ago. Mandarins were only five and a half tenths behind though and could certainly reclaim ninth place on Friday or even in finals. Further up, Bluecoats continued their late season surge to move up into medal contention, passing Crown for only the second time this season, the first being in Murfreesboro. Another close battle that will be worth watching is that between Cavaliers and Blue Stars as Cavaliers closed the gap to less than three tenths and are within grasp of seventh place.
To round out the night, Blue Devils finished in first by nearly a one point margin ahead of Boston Crusaders. While it appears that Blue Devils will likely not surpass their own record high score of 99.65, it is certainly not out of reach for them to break 99 by Saturday. An incredibly unlikely off night by Blue Devils could allow Boston Crusaders to sneak up and cause an upset of the likes of 2008 Phantom Regiment; otherwise, it is more than likely that we will be seeing Blue Devils walk away with their 20th championship in less than 48 hours.
That does it for a full and exciting day at World Championship Prelims! It is hard to believe that we are already down to the final two days of the 2022 DCI season. An incredibly competitive year has not disappointed us to this point and I’m sure a lot more will be in store in these two remaining days.
Continue to keep an eye on our website and social media accounts for all of our continued coverage during World Championships. We have two more live blogs planned, two live reaction shows on Twitter Spaces, and more pieces being released throughout the weekend. Enjoy!
Marching Arts by the Numbers is a current staff writer and stats guru for General Effect Media. He has been involved in the marching arts activity for nearly two decades in a variety of roles. Marching Arts by the Numbers is his newest project with the vision of being the primary source of statistical information for the marching arts community. You can follow more of his work at @band_scores on Twitter.