Shiner band claims second at state
by Cedric Inglehart
Thursday, November 10, 2011
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SAN ANTONIO -- The Shiner Comanche Marching Band capped off a spectacular season by finishing second at the UIL Marching Band Championships, held last Monday at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
Drum majors Shelly Kresta and Nicole Tieken accept the second-place trophy at the 2011 State Marching Band Contest which took place at the Alamodome in San Antonio. photo captured from UIL streaming video by BaerCom
"This is the highest the Shiner Band has ever finished," said Shiner band director Stephen Krupicka. "It was incredibly exciting. Yes we were close to being the champs, but considering this was our first time to medal, everyone was thrilled."
"In this competition, all the bands are outstanding. It was an honor just to be at the state contest amongst such great programs and to finish in second place was virtually unbelievable. I, along with the entire community of Shiner, am so proud of the hard work and accomplishments of this band."
Shiner finished with a composite score of 13 in the Class 1A finals, just four points behind Sundown High School. Somerville, Clarksville and Sudan rounded out the top five with scores of 19, 22 and 26 respectively.
Shiner advanced to the finals by virtue of their third place tie with Somerville in the preliminaries, where they scored 36. Sundown had the round’s best performance, where they scored a perfect 5.
"We came off the fields after our preliminary performance Monday morning not feeling very confident about our performance," Krupicka said. "It was just not our best and most of us felt we had lost our shot at making the finals. However, we managed to place third at that point and move into the finals."
"The band knew they had one final chance to do their best in the finals. They put everything they had into that final performance and really played with heart. Every band member came off that field knowing they just performed their best. It was very exciting to watch the emotion these students played with in that last performance."
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