On Saturday, Oct. 5, the band came in first in the Vista Ridge Marching Festival in both prelims and finals against 27 other bands. They won the Outstanding Music caption in both rounds.

“I think everyone has been really locked in,” senior Zachary Schreppel said. ” A lot of practice has gone into it which is the main reason. I think our music is what really helped us win this competition, we scored marginally higher than any other bands in music.”

The band starts practice around a month before school and spends about 50 hours a week practicing. Recently they have had eight hours a week of practice.

“In rehearsals,” senior Preston Caffey said. “We’ve been taking it a lot more seriously and trying a lot harder than the years past.  It’s great to win because we’ve been working hard for a really long time and in these past two years we’ve only gotten second place so it’s nice that we got the win. A giant group of 170 of us competed against 20 other bands and we beat a really good band that has been dominant for a while. [Everyone expected] the Westlake band to destroy us, but we came through and won.