Thundering Herd stomps through competitions

Ashley Shiau, Asst. Feature Editor|December 15, 2022

With their spirits high, Diamond Bar High School’s Thundering Herd marching band and color guard breezed through competitions with ease, winning sweeps continuously this year in several parades. 

Throughout the year, marching band has been transitioning to the new music building which will help them improve and will ensure they do well during competitions. 

“With new people in our program, we help them catch up to what we do, and most importantly, we make sure they also enjoy their time during the season,” senior Joey Lin said. 

Not only does the team help newcomers, but they have to make sure to often practice, such as velocity warm-ups and warming up their feet with specific exercises that help with marching. The marching band practices two times a week—Tuesday and Thursday—for two hours.

“It can be a bit nerve-wracking to play in sectionals since you are really exposed. The leaders tells the rest of the section of what to play and pick out spots to work on,” junior Lily Liu said. 

On the other side of the field swooping in with their flags, color guard has been busy with their own performances as well. With both teams able to win competitions last year, they were able to follow suit this year. 

“Honestly, I felt accomplished when the school won sweeps. Both band and Colorguard work very hard and winning sweeps shows said effort,” junior Joyce Dimetry said. 

Though Colorguard performs alongside Thundering Herd, they also have their own individual competitions, such as Winter Guard International and West Coast Winter Guard.

Winter Guard International is an American performing arts association for color guard, percussion ensembles, and small marching bands. The organization allows different schools from other countries to compete. West Coast Winter Guard is a more local organization, allowing different schools within the county to compete. 

For both of these competitions, Colorguard has their own plans on how to compete: Junior varsity and frosh compete in West Coast Winter Guard while Varsity competes in WGI. Colorguard can either compete as a group against other schools or they could compete against their own teams from the same school. Varsity, junior varsity, and frosh all would have their own themes with a song to which they would perform. 

Though performing arts as a whole continues to do well, members express various goals to improve upon, such as cooperation. Marching band hopes to win high music sweepstakes and place further next year. 

Colorguard also has some goals set for the team as well: such as being able to win first place in competitions they did the previous year, and they hope to win the same ones next year.

“I hope that the Colorguard is able to win first place in WGI and West Coast winter guard. We were able to do it last year and hopefully we can do it this year,” Dimetry said.