MHS Winter Guard opens season
Submitted photo
The Maryville Winter Guard team competed at the Liberty North meet on Saturday, Feb. 11. Participating students are, from left: TJ Armstrong, Bethany Schenkel, Adam McMahon, Madyson Neff, Jillian Partridge, Tina Ye, Logan Jackson, Mickenzie Nelson, and Ryan Haughey. Not pictured is Jessica Mires.
Festival season for the Maryville Winter Guard started last weekend, and Kylie Mattke’s team had a short window to get ready for the second show this Saturday.
The 10-member unit took eighth place last Saturday at a competition hosted by Liberty North High School and held at South Valley Middle School.
Maryville had a team score of 55.32 performing their show called ‘Pictures at My Exhibition’ by the Piano Guys, an arranged piece based on Mussorgsky’s original work.
The performance, written by Mattke, who is in her second year as head coach, starts with four members of the group moving around a bench for about 40 seconds before the team emerges spinning their flags.
About halfway through the four-minute performance, four members switched out the flags and incorporated wooden rifles into their performance and peforming various fundamentals.
“I thought we did good for our first showing,” Mattke said. “Out of the 10 kids, only four were returning. I was pleased with how they did in the first competition. I wasn’t sure how we’d do, just take it as it is and let the kids have a good time. Actually more than the score, I want them to get along as a team.”
The eight-girl, two-boy squad heard the judges’ critques after their performance.
Five judges grade the competition, two on the general effects of the show’s concept, one on movement/dance, one on equipment (flags and rifles), and one on design analysis — judging the visualize design of the program.
The biggest thing the team has worked on in practice this week is showmanship, and Mattke made a few adjustments to the choreography.
On Saturday, the team will perform at 3:34 p.m. at Blue Valley West High School in Overland Park, Kansas. Another adjustment will be having the full rotation of 10 members, since an illness held one student back last week.
The team practices for three hours two evenings a week at Maryville Middle School.
After the Blue Valley West competition, they will be at Blue Springs South on March 18. The Mid-Continent Color Guard Association Championships take place April 1 at either Willard, Ozark, and Nixa.
“We will still practice and develop more performance skills and update any props as needed,” Mattke said of the long break before the third competition. “We may make changes from what we hear.”
This is the fourth year for Winter Guard at MHS, with the first two seasons spent within the MCCGA novice performance class. Last year, Mattke took over as head coach after serving the first two years as an assistant, and the group went competitive.
Maryville is classified in Region A, which features 57 schools.
Mattke competed in Winter Guard at Smithville High School. She moved to Maryville to attend Northwest Missouri State, where she majored in agriculture business and animal science with a minor in music.
Mattke, who now works at the university, is also the sponsor of Northwest’s newly-reformed Winter Guard team, which has 12 members.