MCHS Marching Band takes first at Junction

MCHS Marching Band takes first at Junction

October 9, 2001

BY JIM THOMAS
Journal Sports Editor

When you’re as good as the Montezuma-Cortez High School Marching Band, sometimes first place just isn’t enough.

Although the Panthers took top honors at the annual Grand Junction Marching Band Festival on Saturday, band director Rodney Ritthaler was not entirely happy with their showing.

"The group took first place, but I was disappointed with their performance," Ritthaler said Monday afternoon. "So were the kids. They weren’t happy with their performance, musically or marching.

"For Delta we have a lot of things we need to clean up and not a lot of time to do it. They need to clean their music up (some sour notes) and their marching (uneven lines) before we go to Delta."

But Ritthaler was pleased by the fact that the Panthers won the parade portion of the competition.

"We did a good job with our marching down Main Street Mall in Grand Junction. But with the field show (at Stocker Stadium), they only did an adequate job. We took first for our percussion line and our guard (flags) took second. We still need to do a much, much better job," he added.

The Panthers will head to Delta on Wednesday and will compete at the annual Western Slope Marching Band Festival on Thursday.

The parade portion of the competition will get under way about 10 a.m. down Main Street in downtown Delta. The field show event will get under way at 1 p.m. at the Delta High School Stadium. The Panthers will perform their show around 3:15.

Unlike in years past, when the winning school (usually MCHS — at least for 19 straight years) competed last, this year the Panthers will be the first to compete among the Class 4A schools.

On a disappointing note, though, Mancos High School Marching Band will not compete in either the field show or parade competitions.

Mancos, which has had excellent bands under former director Janey Silvers, who retired at the end of last year, had some upperclassmen leaving the program. A decision was reached not to take the band this year but to try to get some competition practice and be back next year.

Dolores also will not have a band at the competition. Dolores had dominated Class 1-2A by winning the state competition four straight years during the early 1990s. Mancos won state several times and placed second a few other times during the late 1990s and into the year 2000.

Last year, the Montezuma-Cortez High School Marching Band took second place at the Class 4A Colorado Bandmasters Marching Championships in Denver with a piece by Stephen Melillo entitled "Stormworks."

This year, Ritthaler decided to take two other pieces by Melillo, one of which is actually another part of the same "Stormworks" music, for this year’s marching competition. The band is hoping to take its show to the top level and bring home a state title.

"Scoring at Delta will be very important for us as far as state is concerned," Ritthaler said. "We have got to score well. Regionals is now more important than ever under a new system for determining qualifiers to state."

State is slated a week earlier than in past years, at new Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver.

The top six bands scoring from five regionals will get an automatic bye into the semifinals. The next 12 bands must go into the quarterfinal round on Friday, Oct. 19, at Shea Stadium.

The top six scorers will join those bands which received the bye for the semifinal round. The top six bands from that round advance to the finals on Saturday, Oct. 20.

The Panthers will compete Oct. 27 at Flagstaff, Ariz., at a field-show competition at Northern Arizona University.