Band placed second at the Illinois Marching Band Championships on Oct. 21, after practicing during summer, school days, and night practices. The students focused on working consistently.

“Our main goal was just to improve upon where we are. We always like to do well at competitions. We’re really focused on self improvement, but it was kind of an unspoken rule that we wanted to do well at State, which we did. We did amazingly well, so we’re really happy with that,” said senior Ellie McShane.

Band members used every spare moment to focus on the things they were struggling with and tried to improve themselves.

“Since this was my first year of guard, I really spent a lot of my time practicing and reading the choreography whenever and wherever I could. Not only that, but I would constantly practice my tosses since they weren’t exactly one of my strong points,” said freshman Lexi Coniglio.

Despite the difficult competition, the Marching Knights excelled in their competition, according to the band director Dr. Candace Edstrand.

“The Illinois Marching Band Championships is the largest competition in the state of Illinois. The Marching Knights had an outstanding performance against some of the best bands in the state, and they ended up placing second in class AAAA,” said band director Dr. Candace Edstrand.

Many members of band were very excited about their placement this year and said that they would have memories that would last a lifetime.

“What makes this competition memorable is really the audience size that we get to perform at,” McShane said. “It’s really cool to look out and see like thousands of faces looking back at you, and the reaction we get back from the audience is really memorable.”