The Marching Tigers marched their way to the finals at the ISU band competition on Saturday, Oct. 19.

“The ISU competition is the Illinois State Marching Band Championship,” according to the director Ryan Lipscomb.

The competition consisted of 42 marching bands divided into six different size classifications.

“The top seven from classes 1A, 2A, 3A, and 4A and the top 7 from 5A and 6A are awarded spots in the finals part of the competition where everybody competes against each other regardless of class,” Mr. Lipscomb said.

Competing involves performing for an audience and seven judges who judge different aspects of the show.

The Marching Tigers placed third in their class, 5A, out of the other five bands in the class and overall, placed tenth out of 14 in finals, according senior drum major Aubrey Morgan.

“I’m very proud of the band,” Morgan said. “Third is a pretty good place and this is only the second time the band has ever made finals at this competition. I’m incredibly happy and proud.”

This success resulted from arduous work, according to Mr. Lipscomb.

“Hundreds of hours go into the performance of a marching band show,” Lipscomb said. “We have three weeks in the summer where we meet in the evenings to start learning the music and work on visual fundamentals, marching, dancing, etc.”

While this may seem like quite a bit of practice, there’s a lot more.

“Two weeks before school [starts] we meet Monday through Friday for about nine hours a day to start putting the music and drill together,” Lipscomb said. “The two weeks before school is when we get the majority of the work on the show done.”

Many of the bands they competed against were bigger and from Northern Illinois.

“This year the competition went really well,” junior drum major Will Kirk said. “We had a really good performance to say the least. It’s not easy going up against Chicago schools up there, but we did, and placed 10 out of 42.”

Mr. Lipscomb said he and the other band directors are very happy with the results.

“The band staff and I are exceptionally proud of what our students were able to achieve this last Saturday,” Mr. Lipscomb said. “It really is a huge accomplishment.”