Recap Rundown: The Southern Swing
Recapping a busy weekend on the DCI tour with plenty upsets, rain, and sweet tea.
Hello and welcome to the fifth edition of Recap Rundown! In this edition, we’re going to look at a busy weekend in DCI competition that saw seven shows in three days. 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.
Unfortunately, the theme of the weekend for the four World Class shows in the southeast was storms, storms, and more storms. All four shows - Birmingham, Murfreesboro, Atlanta, and Winston-Salem - experienced some threat of weather at one point or another. Fortunately, DCI was able to get the majority of performances and scores in. Only Birmingham was declared an incomplete contest and no scores were released, while in Winston-Salem, the last two performing corps (Blue Devils and hometown favorite Carolina Crown) were unable to perform. Otherwise, a total of 34 corps were able to have scored performances over the the three events.
The weekend kicked off with Masters of the Summer Music Games in Murfreesboro, a historic show that typically features a number of top 12 corps on the eve of the Atlanta Regional. After a brief covid outbreak scare earlier in the week, Bluecoats returned to competition and were the talk of the night as they passed Crown for the first time this season by three tenths with a score of 91.725. Bluecoats were powered by a strong performance from their percussion section that placed first in the caption, while the corps placed second in music overall. Another surprise of the night was seeing Crown’s brass finish fourth, an incredibly rare occurrence for the typically outstanding hornline.
Elsewhere on the score sheet, Blue Devils maintained their 1.2 spread over Boston Crusaders in first, while Blue Stars held steady at a point over Cavaliers in fifth. Lastly, Santa Clara Vanguard was the only corps of the night that did not receive a score, as they opted for a standstill performance due to safety concerns over field and element conditions.
Focus then shifted to the DCI Southeastern Championship in Atlanta on Saturday, held for the first time at Center Parc Stadium, current home of the Georgia State University football team and former home of the Atlanta Braves and 1996 Summer Olympics (I even wrote an article last week about the stadium’s historic connection to DCI - check it out here!). The new, roofless venue exposed the event to the elements and a passing storm delayed the show for about an hour before kicking off. Fortunately, although the threat of more weather loomed for the rest of the evening, the show eventually got underway and all 16 corps were able to perform.
When it was all said and done, Blue Devils came out with the victory, keeping their undefeated streak of 14 shows intact. However, the margin was the closest it had ever been - Blue Devils topped second place Boston Crusaders by only 0.175, the closest winning spread for the Blue Devils all season. In fact, the top four corps were all incredibly close - Crown took back third place again with a 93.05, while Bluecoats fell back to fourth with a 92.22, making the spread between first and fourth at a slim 1.825.
More shakeup occurred further down the placements as Mandarins fell behind Cavaliers and Phantom Regiment after placing above the two corps a week prior in San Antonio. The separation between the three corps was even closer than at the top, at only 0.55. Cavaliers continue to be powered by their percussion section which placed sixth overall, while Phantom took sixth in brass. Coming into the final stretch of the season, it looks as if the three corps will continue to battle it out for the eighth through tenth positions, trailing Blue Stars ever so slightly for seventh.
Rounding out World Class competition in Atlanta, Madison Scouts, The Academy, and Music City all finished with 1.7 of each other, while Genesis finished with a 72.45, an increase of over three points from their score in San Antonio.
Following Atlanta, six corps made the drive north to Winston-Salem to join the seven corps that did not appear at the Southeastern Championship. The show began almost as a near mirror image as the night before, as the first three corps performed before the show entered about a 90 minute rain delay. And while all of the attending corps got to perform on Saturday, not all were so lucky on Sunday - another approaching rainstorm towards the end of the show prevented performances from Blue Devils and show hosts, Carolina Crown.
As no positions changed between the top five corps the night before, the biggest head turner on the results page happened further down when Colts passed Blue Knights for the first time this season and the first time since 2002. Colts continue to make a strong case as a finalist, again passing Crossmen as well, and finishing with a 83.5. Similar to the ongoing battle for the 7-10 positions, Colts, Crossmen, and Blue Knights will likely be battling for the final two finalist spots coming into the final week of the season.
Winston-Salem also saw the return of Jersey Surf and Troopers to the competition field. Surf, who opted for a shorter tour for financial purposes hadn’t performed against other World Class competition since July 6 in Delaware. Meanwhile, Troopers returned to the field after a covid outbreak in the corps following San Antonio, although dozens of members were still noticeably absent.
Rounding out the weekend were three Open Class shows in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois involving nine out of the 14 corps that will be competing in Marion in two weeks. Legends made their long awaited debut, making them the final corps to debut for the 2022 season, and scored a 67.3 and 68.15 in back to back nights. Guardians took first at a very competitive DCI Central Illinois, catapulting them into being in discussion for the top five in Open Class (or maybe even higher), while Spartans scored two consecutive 72s. Finally, Gold made their return to the competitive field in nearly three weeks, making their way east to perform at the Southeastern Championship.
That does it for this edition! We are beginning the final stretch of the season this week - the final full week of regular season shows and the final regional this coming weekend, a split night event in Allentown for the DCI Eastern Classic. It’s hard to believe, but by this time next week, we’ll be discussing finals week and all the fun that will come with it. Make sure you keep an eye on General Effect Media for all of our latest thoughts and news in the final days of the 2022 DCI season!
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.