2017 DCI Southeastern Championship Presented by Lone Star Percussion

ICYMI: Highly Competitive Weekend Renders Blue Devils On Top

Catch up on what you missed at the two BIG shows this weekend in Drum Corps International's World Class. There are crazy duels all over, make sure you're keeping tabs on everyone as they shuffle around the lineup!

Jul 31, 2017 by Andy Schamma

ICYMI: Highly Competitive Weekend Renders Blue Devils On Top

Catch up on what you missed at the two BIG shows this weekend in Drum Corps International's World Class. There are crazy duels all over, and make sure you're keeping tabs on everyone as they shuffle around the lineup. But first, here's a quick video we captured in the warm-up lot in Atlanta with Phantom Regiment's bass drums!

Southeastern Championship Exposes More Duels

On Saturday night, 17 World Class corps, three Soundsport groups, and one All-Age corps hit the field in Powder Springs, GA, at McEachern High School. Atlanta CV came out to represent Drum Corps Associates (DCA) and got the home-team crowd off of its feet early on in the competition. After it was all said and done, Blue Devils came out atop Santa Clara Vanguard by the smallest margin in drum corps history: 0.013 points. Not only is it incredible that these corps are so close in score, but it's also remarkable that these two corps are reaching such high levels of excellence with very different approaches to the modern definition of "drum corps." Phantom Regiment also kept their spot above Blue Knights by a mere 0.250 points, which still keeps BK within striking range when the two see each other on Monday night in Charleston, WV.

In individual captions on Saturday night, Vanguard took the overall General Effect and Music captions, including Percussion. Visual continues to set Blue Devils apart from the rest, having received a 28.2 in Powder Springs and earning first in each subcaption. The Cavaliers continue to make waves in the Color Guard caption, having earned second with an 18.7, only 0.2 behind the first-place Blue Devils guard. The brass caption was much closer at the top than it has been recently, which is normally dominated by Carolina Crown's brass section. The top four brasslines scored within a half point of each other, with Crown taking first with a 18.50 and the Bluecoats finishing fourth with a 18.00.

We saw a bit of grouping into twos sprinkled throughout the lineups in Powder Springs and NightBEAT. Here are some of the duels you'll want to watch for as we get closer to Indianapolis! Some of these duels swap on a near-daily basis and even get a third corps involved, such as The Cavaliers' spot just recently encroaching heavily on the fourth-place spot where Bluecoats currently sit.

1-2. Blue Devils / Santa Clara Vanguard

3-4. Bluecoats / Carolina Crown

6-7. Boston Crusaders / The Cadets

8-9. Phantom Regiment / Blue Knights

10-11. Crossmen / Blue Stars

12-13. Madison Scouts / Mandarins

15-16. Troopers / Colts

NightBEAT Doubles Down on Saturday's Results

After unveiling some new endings in Powder Springs, Sunday night's show at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, left many fans speechless out of sheer awe. From the day that corps begin designing their shows, they must consider how they're going to develop production elements and add enhancements to their show to keep the crowd amazed. Planning on the corps' design staff's part has been masterful this season. Many new endings including new drill and music adjustments were performed for the first time this weekend and were even more improved on Sunday night in NightBEAT. Check out the live blog from Sunday night's show to get a recap on each of the corps' performances.

As far as results go, Blue Devils once again retained their lead over Vanguard -- even increased it from the night before. Madison Scouts topped Mandarins in Winston-Salem, after the two reversed spots last weekend in San Antonio. As their paths diverted, the two corps did not see each other all week, but Scouts did manage to pull in the lead by 0.525 on Sunday night.

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