Spinning flags and tossing rifles and sabers up in the air, members of Diamond Bar High School’s color guard put up a spectacular show at the Bakersfield Regional Competition on February 2 held by Winter Guard International. The team outshined their opponents and earned top marks from the judges, placing first with a score of 67.560.

The scoring rubric was based on four categories: vocabulary, design, general effect, and execution. Vocabulary is the choreography of the performance and is tied in with the design; the coaches helped the performers create the theme and routines that would accompany it. General effect judges how hyped the audience was during the performance, and execution is based on how well the choreography was paired with the other elements.

The Bakersfield competition, with 12 participating schools, was one of the first major color guard competitions this season. In this competition, the team used “Cinderella” as the theme for their performance and performed to an acappella version of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” by Whitney Houston. Despite the seemingly simple performance, learning this routine was anything but. Many members had difficulty mastering the moves in the beginning, but as color guard practiced more, everything fell into place and the show ran smoothly.

Two weeks before the event, the color guard members spent every other day perfecting their performance in several different areas to create a similar atmosphere to that of the actual competition. However the team faced several challenges, one of which included noisy practice locations, which made it hard to hear the music and concentrate during practice. The installation of new coaches in the past two years was also difficult because many changes were implemented within a short amount of time.

“Since we got new coaches pretty recently, I expect [the members] to try to help others so that when it comes towards the end of season [so] everyone will be content with what they put through throughout the season,” senior co-captain Nika Villaverde stated.

Last school year, coaches Rob Brett and Brent Dunlap took over and helped guide color guard through a strong undefeated season. This school year, the team almost recreated this record, with a single blemish being a loss to the Riverside Kings. Coach Anna Tran joined the two coaches as they pushed all the members to train harder in every aspect of the routine.

“I believe it’s safe to say, there’s evidence and proof the team is doing fantastic and it’s just going to get better from here on out for Diamond Bar High School Color guard,” coach Tran said.

A week after the Bakersfield competition, color guard placed second out of fifteen teams at the WGI Riverside Regional Competition