After weeks of practicing over the summer and almost daily practices during the school year, the marching band participated in its first competition, the Lafayette Marching Competition, on Saturday, Sept. 28.

The band placed fifth out of its division of five teams at the competition, to the disappointment of many band members. According to senior Hannah Mosley, color guard captain, the outcome is not entirely unexpected.

“It still early in the season, so we haven’t finished our show yet and haven’t done a lot of cleaning to make it look better,” Hannah Mosley, said “We also have less rehearsal time than the other bands, and have a more traditional approach than some of the bands.”

The band’s traditional approach includes their lack of props and traditional music and uniforms. Senior band member PJ Doerner agrees with Mosley’s perspectives.

“We don’t practice nearly as much as other bands,” Doerner said. “We try to be more focused but it doesn’t always work out.”

Despite these downfalls, improvements are in the future for the band, according to Doerner.

“We’ve listened to critiques from the judges from the competition and plan to make some of the changes they suggested,” Mosley said. “For the color guard specifically, the judge said that he thought we should have more dance in the show, so we are adding dance to our new work, and possibly to some of our old work.”

These corrections extend beyond the color guard alone. Many of the corrections can be made without “too much effort,” according to Doerner, and could improve the show greatly.

“The biggest weakness of the band is the lack of experience,” Doerner said. “We only have seven seniors.”

Despite the struggle of a young band without experience, there are numerous positive aspects that give band members hope for upcoming competitions.

“One of our greatest strengths though is we have great instructors who bring a lot of that experience,” Doerner said.