Pride of Breckenridge advances at UIL

The Breckenridge High School “Pride of Breckenridge” Marching Band scored first divisions across the judging panel at the UIL Regional Marching Band Competition last Saturday at in Early.

The band will proceed to the UIL Area Marching Contest at the C.H. Collins Athletics Complex in Denton, tentatively set for 12:45 p.m. Saturday, when they will continue performing “Phobias” by Luke Millican.

Breckenridge Band Director Dane Richardson said he felt confident in the overall performance left on the field last weekend, which built off a strong performance during halftime at last Friday’s football game.

“I felt like they did a good job,” Richardson said. “I think [Friday] night was strong, and today was even stronger. We had a lot more things go right for us. It wasn’t flawless, but that’s probably the best I’ve seen this year.”

The band’s performance consists of four movements focusing on the fear of snakes, spiders, clowns and small spaces. Richardson said a normal show for the band contains around 35 to 40 moves, but this year’s show contains roughly 90. He added there were technical difficulties with electronics during their regional performance.

“This has been a monster show. It’s been a marathon to get all the movement at the level of precision we needed it to be,” he said. “... If they have anything to say about that, I think they will tell us to make better sounds and to push through the phases.”

To advance to area, the band must meet certain standards judges look for on a rubric, such as drill execution, sound, technique, movement and formation. Difficulty of the show overall is determined by the judges.

“We are competing against a standard. Did we execute the drill? Did we play well? Did we look and sound good?” Richardson said.

The determining factor to advance at area differs from regional with judges ranking schools against each other and not simply giving an evaluation and score. Alongside Bangs, Cisco, Eastland and Early, Richardson said Comanche is a school to look at during the area contest.

“Comanche has a new director this year, and is going to be the dark horse nobody was thinking about,” he said.

Although walking away with top marks across the board, the Pride of Breckenridge’s success did not come without a few glitches. Cason Rincon, senior soloist, said he gained his trumpet solo two days before the regional contest.

“Originally it wasn’t given to me, it was given to a better trumpet than I was, and it was kind of a last-minute choice,” Rincon said.

Despite receiving notification he was to perform the solo with less than 48 hours to prepare, Rincon said had been preparing for this moment.

“I’ve had my music memorized for ages. I’m like a back-up plan. I always have my music memorized and ready to go,” he said. “I thought we did really good, there’s a lot of things we can improve upon, but other than that, I thought we did an overall good job.”