Carmel wins Indianapolis Super Regional


Oct. 22, 2018 at 11:58 a.m. CT

Carmel wins Indianapolis Super Regional

By Jeremiah Wooten

Reigning national champion Carmel won their second champion title this season, defeating Avon and Blue Springs at the Indianapolis Super Regional Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Carmel's trophies are displayed while the band performs their champion encore at the Indianapolis Super Regional on Oct. 20, 2018, at Lucas Oil Stadium. // Photo by Jeremiah Wooten
This was the first super regional to have prelims adjudication split between two panels, following a change in the adjudication system for super regionals and grand nationals enacted earlier this year. Under the new system, two prelims panels alternate between blocks, with each panel adjudicating as close to an equivalent number of participants as possible. Efforts are also made to evenly distribute class participants and returning finalists between the two panels. While that new system may be to blame for some scoring and numerical irregularities in prelims, there was no question who the champion was.

The majority of Carmel’s (91.00) victory came from the effect caption, where they finished seven tenths ahead of Avon, but the Marching Greyhounds did sweep captions, earning narrow victories in the music and visual captions as well.

Avon (90.15) finished first in both individual music and individual visual performance, the two captions judged from field level. That’s a pretty good indication that in terms of skills and training, Avon is performing at an extremely high level. As they proceed toward Grand Nats, they just need to clean and perfect their challenging music and visual package, and their effect scores could quickly catch up to their performance scores.

Blue Springs (87.75) was one of two groups that did not increase their score from prelims to finals. Despite a much better performance than in prelims, the Golden Regiment had some technical difficulties with their featured vocalist’s microphone that seemed to take a hit on their music effect scores in finals. In prelims, the band won the visual caption and finished less than half a point behind Avon.

Homestead (85.80) shifted to class AAA this season, which meant we got a bigger glimpse at how they were scored during the prelims awards ceremony. The band won visual and effect captions in its class and was named class champion, beating fellow Indiana competitor Castle (83.20). Castle slipped one spot from seventh place in prelims to eighth place in finals, preserving their streak of finals appearance that they’ll hope to continue when they return to Lucas Oil in November.

Union (85.35) finished their season Saturday night, earning fifth place. In the past, the band would have at least one more weekend of competition at either the Oklahoma state championships or the St. Louis Super Regional. However, OBA state championships took place the same weekend as Indy Super, and they will not be going to St. Louis this year.

Lawrence Township (84.30) and Fishers (83.75) were two big surprises of the weekend. Both bands certainly seemed finalist-worthy heading into the weekend, but finished in the top half of finals, just ahead of former national finalist Castle. We’re excited to watch how these three Indiana groups improve over the next few weeks heading into Grand Nats, as they all sit right on the bubble of making national finals.

Rosemount performs in finals at the Indianapolis Super Regional on Oct. 20, 2018, at Lucas Oil Stadium. // Photo by Jeremiah Wooten
After just narrowly sneaking into finals by 0.075 over Lincoln, Rosemount (82.95) shot up dramatically to finish ninth place in finals. That jump was primarily fueled by their top-half placement in music, a caption they tied with Union. Center Grove (82.55) finished just four tenths behind, propelled by their similar top-half finish in visual.

Brownsburg (81.10) and Centerville (81.10) tied in finals, with Brownsburg earning the higher placement due to their higher GE score. The two bands also tied in music, with Centerville having a slight upper hand in visual.

In their first-ever super regional finals performance, Plainfield (79.95) placed as high as ninth in visual ensemble and would have finished 13th without the 0.5 point penalty they received. Instead, Lakota East (80.15), who just made history with their first-ever super regional finals appearance last year, finished 13th, slipping one placement from their 12th-place finish in prelims.

Lincoln finished prelims in 15th place, just one spot and 0.075 points out of finals. And just one tenth behind them was Lakota West. While there’s always a sharp cut off for finals, it does open the question of how the panel split may have affected the finalists. If Lincoln was judged by panel 2 instead of panel 1, perhaps they would have made up that tiny gap and been in finals.

To dig into the numbers for yourself, check out our color-coded, combined-panel prelims recap, and our ordinal-sorted finals recap.

It was a jam-packed weekend of excellent performances, whether in finals or out of finals. We can’t wait for another exciting weekend with even more bands in St. Louis.