Band’s Arcadia three-peat

On Nov. 18, MC band took home the Arcadia tournament trophy, sealing their third Arcadia win in a row.

“We didn’t know if we were going to win or not, so the whole rush of [winning] was really insane,” MC senior Hannah Wong said.

The anticipation built after a season of drilling and a full day of nerves.

“They kept going down the rankings and we realized we were in the top two spots,” Wong said. “It was crazy not hearing our name at second place and realizing we got first. It overwhelmed us so much.”

While the initial shock of victory hit the band hard, their place on top is not a complete surprise, as their season reflects.

“We’ve been preparing throughout the year for Arcadia in so many different ways,” MC junior Taylor Mcdermott said. “We got our music back in May so we’ve been practicing since then. Everything picked up during band camp [starting Aug. 20]. We spent all our time since then working on music and visuals and getting [the performance] where we wanted it to be.”

Band’s victory speaks as a justification of the time spent working on perfecting their performance.

“We pushed ourselves 200 percent every rehearsal we got,” Wong said. “A three-peat leaves such a good legend.”

Along with effort, the relationships among the band members helped drive them to their success.

“We are family. Everybody loves each other,” Wong said. “It’s really great to have this community and second family you can rely on.”

 

A run-down on the day

MC seniors Hailey Lange and Nicole Valdez reflect on their final band tournament  glory.

“The Arcadia tournament is like the championships,” Valdez said. “In the morning we get [to MC] at like seven and do all our casual stuff like exchanging senior gifts and then we leave on the bus for two hours and we get to Arcadia. The parade

. We get dressed, we do the parade. It’s terrible and it’s long.”

“It’s really hot and you warm up forever and then you get done with the parade and then you have to walk all the way back to where the buses are,” Lange said. “That’s not fun. That’s really not fun.”

“Then we go to awards but we usually lose but they’re still fun,” Valdez said.

“We didn’t lose by a lot this year,” Lange said. “We got third place. First place was .15 ahead of us and second was .1 in front of us.”

“Then we go to dinner at the mall,” Valdez said.

“Then we have our senior line,” Lange said. “All the seniors get in line and all the band moms and dads and staff and other students go through and hug every single person. All the seniors then wrap around and hug each other and everyone starts crying.”

“It [was] a cry-fest” Valdez said. “We’re just all bawling and it’s really fun.”

“We go into the mall and get dinner,” Lange said. “We meet back at the buses and head over to Citrus college,”

“On the way to Citrus College we put on a video so [the seniors of] every section makes a video for their section, thanking them, wishing them good luck, diss tips, and they’re usually really funny,” Valdez said.

“Hopefully,” Lange said.

“In mine, I was dancing to Gucci Gang,” Valdez said. “It’s just really funny stuff.  Then we get to Citrus College. We warm up, have a great performance. It’s really nerve wracking for a lot of people because the press box is super high.”

“There’s like 4000 people watching,” Lange said. “It’s pretty cool. What you do with the freshman is you cover their eyes and you lead them so they’re not allowed to look at the audience until you get over to where you’re supposed to be. Then you uncover their eyes and they’re like ‘Oh my God.’”

“After we perform we go to awards and awards are really fun,” Valdez said. “We eat a bunch of junk food. So there’s 12 bands that go to championships. So they go from 12th place all the way to first and we didn’t think we were going to win this year because we had a lot of competition. They got to third place and they announced Chino so it was us and RB and we are clenched with fear.”

“Because freshman year we barely lost to RB and everyone thought we should have won and everyone was getting flashbacks like ‘Oh God no,’” Lange said. “Then we won.”

“Everyone was crying,” Valdez said.

“You get to run on the field,” Lange said. “All the band moms near the entrance form a thing for you to walk through and you just sprint your butt off and you go and everyone gives you the medals and your section takes pictures with the trophy and everyone’s crying. Then you have to get back on the busy for a two hour bus ride home. Everyone’s so emotionally exhausted.”

“It’s the best tournament ever,” Valdez said.

“When you win,” Lange said.

“I don’t know even freshman year was fun,” Valdez said. “It was the end of it that sucked.”

“People are still bitter about that,” Lange said. “Don’t ask people about that. Also, this year the band counsel made little felt black hearts because our show was dark hearts and they put it on a safety pin and every single person wore it on their uniform during the show under their jacket. Even the director. Some moms.”