I think it’s safe to say that the past week in DCI has been interesting, exciting, and COMPETITIVE. For example, let’s take a look at the caption results from tonight’s NightBEAT competition:

General Effect - Bluecoats
Overall Visual - Blue Devils
Guard - Boston Crusaders
Overall Music - Carolina Crown
Brass - Carolina Crown
Percussion - Santa Clara Vanguard

With all of these corps splitting the various captions on the score sheet, it’s not surprising that the top three are all within a single point and the top two, Bluecoats and Blue Devils, have swapped victories three times in the past three days. Tonight, it was BD’s spread in visual which narrowly gave them the victory, but there are still just under two weeks remaining in the season and the Bluecoats aren’t done adding to their show.

Meanwhile, the Cavaliers made a major move up tonight, passing Boston Crusaders for the first time this season and coming within striking distance of Carolina Crown. The Cavies were able to do this on the strength of fourth place finishes in General Effect and Music Analysis, though Boston’s ninth place finish in percussion was also a significant factor in these results.

Finally, the race for the last spot at World Class Finals in Indy continues. Phantom currently sits solidly in that twelfth spot ahead of Spirit of Atlanta. Spirit’s lone caption score head of Phantom was in brass. By taking the remaining captions between the two corps, Phantom currently has a lead of more than a point. Spirit has pulled ahead of Phantom previously this season and this is a gap which can disappear depending on both corps’ performance, so this race isn’t over yet.