Clover and Fort Mill scored top five finishes in the 5A state band finals
When the largest high schools in South Carolina marched on Saturday, two York County bands scored top five results.
Clover finished fourth in the 5A state championships at Irmo High School. Fort Mill finished fifth. Those schools trailed only winner Wando, James F. Byrnes and Summerville high schools. Rock Hill was the only other area band to march in the state’s largest division.
Rock Hill finished at No. 17 out of 21 bands in the preliminary round. The top dozen schools from preliminaries marched again in the finals. Clover finished third in preliminaries, a spot better than in the finals. Fort Mill improved its sixth place preliminary round score by one spot in the finals.
The 5A competition in band includes the 24 largest high schools in South Carolina by enrollment. It’s different from the classification used for other high school sports. At more than 2,600 students Clover is the sixth largest school, but more than 200-600 students smaller than any band that finished higher on Saturday.
Fort Mill is the 20th largest school and Rock Hill is No. 22. Both schools have about 1,000 fewer students — they’re roughly two-thirds the size — than the top finisher, Wando. About 100 fewer students for either high school would have put Fort Mill or Rock Hill in 4A competition.
That classification already has crowded its winners. Catawba Ridge won and Nation Ford finished second in 4A, a week before the 5A competition, in a final round that also included York, Indian Land and Northwestern high schools.
Weather factored into the performances on Saturday. A light rain that began as Fort Mill performed in the finals intensified, and continued intermittently for the rest of the night. Clover, Wando, Byrnes, Summerville and two other bands all marched after Fort Mill. Weather even curtailed the award ceremony at the end.
This story was originally published November 7, 2022 at 9:52 AM.
