With the cold weather comes the return of one of Hayes’ lesser known sports: winter guard. After a third place ranking at states last year, the team returns to bring a new show to life.
The Hayes’ winter guard team, composed of 16 members, is currently in the process of practicing, perfecting and performing their latest show, titled “All the Lonely People.” Set to the Cody Fry cover of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” the performance marks a new stage of the group’s progress. Since last year, there has been a movement up into the next class – from Scholastic Regional AA to Scholastic Regional A of the OIPA (Ohio Indoor Performance Association) hosted competition.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how we’re able to compete with the higher level guards,” section leader Alexis Graham said. “We’ve been competing with the same couple [of] schools for a while, so I just want to see what they’re bringing to the table and how we can match that type of [show].”
Thanks to the new competition and higher expectations, the team has fully committed to putting their all into the new season. Since November, the guard has been practicing and choreographing their show, with results to prove it.
“I think that [this show] is going to get us pretty far this year,” team captain Avery Takas said. “It’s really different and from how the judges have already reacted [to] our preview, they already like it.”
Despite the change in their competition level and the unique show, the rehearsal process has remained majorly the same for the team: working each day, learning the choreography and how to work with their props and equipment. It can be a long and intense task to undertake and the team is currently halfway done with their four minute piece.
“Practice is getting more and more intense. [It’s] about running the show as far as [we‘ve gotten] into it, over and over and over to make sure we can clean it,” Takas said.
Aside from practices, the guard is already participating in various competitions around Ohio building up to the state competition. Hosted on weekends, these showings are a testament to the commitment and dedication of the team.
“A lot of our performance times have been around ten in the morning,” Graham said. “We usually get [to] Hayes [around] five so we can practice for a couple hours.”
Despite being intensive and time consuming, winter guard remains one of the more unknown sports that Hayes hosts. Although team numbers have gone up from only ten people in 2022, the team only saw one new member for this season. Along with relatively low participation within the sport, winter guard sees far less external support from other students and school staff.
“I would love for there to be more support, just like how at [other sports games] there’s so many people,” winter guard coach Brittany Green said. “It’s definitely enjoyable; it’s basically like watching a play.”
The tight knit community that makes up the winter guard is important, but they’re also more than willing to see new people involved.
All in all, the winter guard is moving forward and moving up. Competitions will continue through to the OIPA State Championships at the end of March. The team hopes to see even more ‘lonely people’ coming to join next season or even get involved with the fall guard next school year.
