York County marching bands competed for top spot in SC standings. Here’s who won.
York County bands ranked near the top of the 4A marching band state final standings Saturday, but didn’t quite reach the top spot.
T.L. Hanna from Anderson County won the state title by less than half a point. Catawba Ridge finished second, followed by Nation Ford and York high schools. Indian Land was No. 8 and Northwestern No. 11 in the field of 16 bands.
The top four bands came from the upper state. Catawba Ridge topped T.L. Hanna, Nation Ford and York in that order a week prior. Catawba Ridge was a point-and-a-half better at upper state before T.L. Hanna flipped the script at Spring Valley High School on Saturday.
Judges picked Catawba Ridge as the best band Saturday in individual music and visual performance, ensemble visual performance and overall visual performance.
T.L. Hanna topped the rankings in ensemble and overall music performance, plus music overall effect, visual overall effect and combined overall effect.
Nation Ford finished more than a point behind Catawba Ridge, but also more than a point ahead of York. Nation Ford finished between second and fifth throughout the 22-column score sheet that scores individual and group components for music, visuals and overall effect.
York scored between third and fifth place across those same metrics.
The second place finish ended a two-year streak of state championships for Catawba Ridge. It’s the second year in a row without a title at Nation Ford, a band that won nine of 12 times — there wasn’t a competition in 2020 — prior to last year.
T.L Hanna is the only new winner thus far. The class 1A through 3A champions are all repeats from last year, while class 5A marches this coming Saturday in Colleton County.
York Prep finished No. 8 in the 1A finals Saturday. Lewisville finished No. 12.
The 5A bands will march at Colleton County High School. Clover performs at 10:15 a.m. and Rock Hill at 11:30 a.m. in preliminary competition. The largest classification features 22 bands this year.
Perennial power Fort Mill fits into that size group, but won’t march Saturday in the state competition. It will instead travel for a national event in Utah.
The 5A finals are held later Saturday at the same site as the preliminaries. Finals performance for the top 12 bands run from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., with awards following that.
The Herald’s marching band poll
Marching band is an institution throughout the area, with 10 schools across the three counties accounting for more than 60 state titles.
Last week the Herald asked readers online which high school marching band was the best readers have seen this fall, and already that poll has almost 98,000 responses.
The poll wasn’t meant to be scientific, but it showed significant interest.
Clover (26%) at 25,560 votes led York (25%) at 24,356 votes as of Monday afternoon. Next closest were Northwestern (20%), York Prep (10%) and Lewisville (6%). All 16 tri-county schools recorded votes, with 11 of them reaching 100 votes or more.
