Well, Illinois marching band fans, this is week 1 of the two biggest weeks of the Illinois marching season. U of I is upon us, so is Sandwich and Metamora. Finally, the Lincoln Way Competition is also this weekend, a competition that is being called a “warmup for ISU.”
Lincoln Way Invitational-Frankfort, IL
A-Elmwood Park and Round Lake are going head to head in this class. Elmwood Park already has one class championship this season, so we’re going to give the nod to them to win this class.
AA-This is a fairly stacked class. We have to give the nod to Wheeling after their win last week at the Marengo Settler’s Days. Our pick: Wheeling
AAA-This class, to say the least, is stacked. Including the two Lincoln Ways and Marian, there are 8 of the 11 finalists from ISU last year. Even though Lincoln Way East may pass them next week in 6A, they can’t pass Lake Park this week. Our pick: Lake Park
GC-On account of winning AAA, the Grand Champion trophy for this year goes to Lake Park. Our pick: Lake Park
Sandwich Invitational-Sandwich, IL
C-This one is very easy to predict. As they are the only band in their class, Our pick goes to: Dwight.
B-Most of these bands competed against each other last weekend at the Settlers’ Days. All except for Marengo competed against each other. Our gut instinct says to go with Marengo for this class. Our pick: Marengo
A-Threeof these bands met up last week at the Settlers’ Days. The new addition is Yorkville. Kaneland won the battle last week for AA, coming in 4th, in front of Rochelle and Grayslake. We think that Kaneland can keep it up one more week, until they face the toughest uphill battle of their season next week in competing in the same class as Marian Catholic. Our pick: Kaneland.
AA-Brother Rice and Rolling Meadows are competing in this class. Brother Rice has had a decent season thus far, but we feel that Rolling Meadows will take this class. Our pick: Rolling Meadows
GC-Winning AA will allow Rolling Meadows to take home the grand champion trophy. Our pick: Rolling Meadows
Illini Marching Band Festival-Champaign, IL
Parade:
C&D: Atwood Hammond looks to repeat their championship from last season. Their domination of this parade class in past seasons will lead them to win this class again. Our pick: Atwood-Hammond
B: This class caused a little bit of disagreement among the ILmarching staff. One person believed that the grand champion would be Macomb, while the others believed that IVC would win, due to their convincing parade win over Galesburg, Eureka, Dunlap, Pontiac, and Prairie Central. We have yet to see Macomb parade this season. #3 will be one of Prairie Central, Eureka, Mater Dei, and Herscher. Our pick: IVC
A: Another class that created some discussion among the ILmarching staff. Dunlap performs last in their class. They were 1st in parade at Morton regardless of class, and 1st in their class at Washington. But then they were outscored by Galesburg by 5 points at Washington, and since Dunlap’s band is much smaller this year, they’ll seem less impressive to the judges. Washington #2 and Bloomington #3, Galesburg, Mahomet-Seymour, and Highland as dark horses to place. Our pick: Dunlap
AA: Prospect should reign over this class pretty handedly. With most of the big competitiors not competing in parade, Prospect goes up against 5 others for this title, most of which do not compete in parades all that much. Our pick: Prospect
Field
C&D: Class C/D is still relatively small in comparison to the other classes. However, that doesn’t mean that these bands don’t compete just as hard as their counterparts. Atwood-Hammond looks good to win this class, after placing second last year to Watseka. Our pick: Atwood-Hammond
B: IVC gives Macomb a run for their money. If the two performances were closer together, we’d pick IVC to win but Macomb being 2+ hours later, and the last band of the day (for that set of judges) pushes Macomb over the top. 4 years back Herscher would have been in the running here, but they’ve not had as much success since. We still think they could break top 4, though. Eureka and Mater Dei are the other two competitors for trophies, but we think Macomb and IVC are your #1 and #2. Our pick: Macomb
A: The largest class at U of I with 16 bands, the really interesting race here is for #2, and we think Bloomington has a shot at it. Strong bands including Morton, Galesburg, Dunlap and Effingham are in this class. However, we feel that with Morton going for the three-peat, they will win this class again this season. Our pick: Morton
AA: The biggest thrill of the competition will be to watch the battle for class champion between Prospect and John Hersey. Hersey tries to prove last year wasn’t a fluke after their stunning defeat of Prospect last season. Hersey will just about have peaked by this point, and should make it very close. However, Prospect looks to take advantage of a very solid show, high scores thus far, and rebound from their performance last year. Our pick: Prospect