On Sep. 17, the Marching Cavaliers opened their season at the Clover vs Cosby football game in their brand new uniforms, showing off a score of new tunes. This marked the band’s first performance to a full audience of school spirited cavaliers since 2019. 

Since the beginning of August, senior drum major Abby Havener worked with the Marching Cavaliers rigorously to prepare for the marching season. 

“It’s three weeks, early in the morning from 7-12; we worked really hard the whole time so we can learn our drill and our music,” Havener said. “It’s one week of music, and then two weeks of drill. At the end, we put on a community performance, [which is] like our first performance of the season.”

The marching cavaliers work has not ended though; it has just begun. They practice twice a week and spend more than 12 hours at school on Friday. Havener goes through the band’s rehearsal process after school.

“After school we have a rehearsal and then we eat dinner; we [kind of] quick rehearse everything one more time and then we go do the stuff for the game,” Havener said.

Last year, the Pandemic stopped the incoming freshmen from performing at football games. Some returning, now sophomore, Cavaliers like sousaphone player Syd Cope experienced their first real football game of high school. 

“Being able to perform is so nice honestly, [because] I haven’t had that before,” Cope said. 

Sophomore Natasha Myers started off feeling the nerves of the first game, but ended up having a great time.

“It was kind of nerve racking since it was the first game of the season, but it was still really fun. I loved playing the stand tunes and cheering,” Myers said.

At the end of the marching season, the Marching Cavaliers will perform their grand show by using music to depict the theme of Cataclysm in a final competition. 

“The music kinda follows along because it’s like the opener is like really loud and you know, very in your face, [to show the world is ending],” Cope said. “Then it’s the ballad [or the second part of the show] which is where the tubas have their solo and the baritones have their solo, and so that’s when everything is like coming down and we’re all sad about it, [then,] the percussion feature  is where we do our dance break [to show the rebuilding of the world] and finally we have the closer representing rejoicing.

Abby Havener and the rest of the band were enthusiastic that their football games’ performances turned out so well.

“Everything turned out really well and we got a lot of congratulations,” Havener said. 

On Oct. 23, the Marching Cavaliers won first place in class 4-A at the Mechanicsville Tournament of Champions. The Marching Cavaliers have been practicing hard for months, and their hard work is prevalent in their win.