Jeff Griffith is a writer and columnist for FloMarching, and any perspective presented in this article represents his own only.

Every spring, it feels like this moment comes out of nowhere.

It’s time to turn the calendar to April. That means warmer weather (hopefully, depending where you live), the start of baseball season, tax day, and so forth.

In WGI, it means regionals are a thing of the past. It’s like Selection Sunday in college basketball; it’s all about World Championships now. 

But we’ve got to wait a hot second before diving into seven action-packed days of indoor Color Guard, Percussion and Winds action over the course of two weekends. It all gets rolling on Thursday, August 7, with a full weekend of Guard action. 

So, now, what else is there to do but sit, wait, and speculate?

Speculate may not be the perfect word, but the final weekend of March provided plenty of data on what to look out for in Ohio. 

In that vein, here are five key competitive storylines for the upcoming weekend of WGI Color Guard World Championships:

1. Checking on the Champions

We’re three years removed from the last time WGI crowned its six color guard world champions. So, that’s about the longest one-time “title defense” in marching arts history.

Here’s a quick primer on which reigning champions have the best chance to make it two “in a row” in 2022.

• Independent World — Pride of Cincinnati: As it stands today, Pride has the highest score of any IW group at a WGI event this season, and it recorded it a full week before several other groups (March 20, 93.500). So, mathematically, there’s a pretty decent chance.
• Scholastic World — Avon HS: Similar story to Pride of Cincinnati. Avon’s the only SW group to crack 90 points this month at a WGI event, and did so back on March 20 with a 90.400.
• Independent Open — George Mason University Winterguard: After a stunning 99.000 in 2019, George Mason made the move up to World Class, so it won’t be defending any IO titles. They weren’t alone, either — FIU, which finished fourth in 2019, also made the jump to World Class. With 2019’s silver and bronze medalists not attending this year, Independent Open appears to be anyone’s ball game. 
• Scholastic Open — Fishers HS: Fishers also jumped to Scholastic World in 2022 and has held its own among other SW groups at regionals this season. Actually, the entire top three from 2019’s SO Finals — Fishers, Arvin (CA), and Dripping Springs (TX), each of which defeated the rest of the field by more than three points — won’t be among the SO groups competing this April. 
• Independent A — Icon Winter Guard: Icon earned a near-three-point win over the field in 2019, and will be one of sixty-four groups competing at the IA level in April. It’s hard to get a read on this group, though — at its only WGI appearance back in late February, Icon did place first, but up against just one other group. 
• Scholastic A — Fleming Island HS: After an impressive gold medal and score of 97.720, Fleming Island isn’t competing at 2022’s World Championships, so the 49-deep Scholastic A field is wide open for a new champion.

2. IW’s Top Dogs

There’s still a lot left up in the air regarding Independent World standings.

Why? If you rifle (pun intended) through the color guard scores of the final weekend of March, there’s one common theme. All three events — Manhattan Beach, Atlanta, and Philadelphia — had a winner, and each winner defeated its second-place opponent by at least 2.5 points.

The same exact thing happened at two of three events the previous weekend — Orlando and Indianapolis — with the third, in Dallas, featuring ORIGINS and Invictus separated for first and second by half a point.

Of the five events that fit under that heading, though, their head-and-shoulders winners were as follows: Diamante, Blessed Sacrament, Pegasus World, Paramount, and Pride of Cincinnati, all but one of which scored 92 points or more. Onyx, which came in second to Pride of Cincinnati in Indianapolis, also broke 90 at that March 20 event. 

The six events over the last two weekends featured all 25 of the IW groups that will compete in Ohio next weekend. So, that’s a pretty good sample size. 

All that said, it seems there may be a clear upper crust forming for 2022. But with each of that tiers members coming from different corners of the country, it’s anyone’s guess how they’ll shuffle into place — or, who might break through. 

3. SWeet Sixteen

2022’s Color Guard World Championships will feature a highly-concentrated lineup of Scholastic World talent, with just 16 competitors, all of which will advance to Saturday’s Finals. 

It might not be a long lineup, but it’s a loaded one.

Of 2019’s top five ensembles, four have already seen each other on the WGI season — Avon, Carmel, Center Grove and Miamisburg. They’ve all seen each other twice, too, with Avon taking first both times. If that lead’s going to hold, it’ll be a third consecutive gold medal for Avon. 

Carmel, which will be aiming for its staggering 11th-consecutive top-three finish, scored within two points of Avon last weekend in Indianapolis. Fellow midwest competitors Miamisburg and Fishers also scored in the 85-86 point vicinity, within about five points of the leader. 

While it accounts for about half of the SW groups competing at World Championships, the midwest isn’t the only Scholastic World hotbed. Groups like West Broward (FL), Miamisburg (OH), Trumbull (CT), and Lyman (FL) — all of which broke 90 and scored among the top eight at 2019’s Finals — will be in attendance in Ohio. 

4. Wide (Independent) Open

Looking across the Open Class landscape, a couple of key frontrunners have been putting out strong numbers all season. 

On the Independent Open end, as was mentioned above, many of the top groups from 2019 are now either World Class groups, or not attending. There’s one returning top-five ensemble, though, that seems primed to make major waves — and that’s ORIGINS Open.

Having taken fifth in 2019, ORIGINS is the top IO group returning to IO competition this April. The Texas group is fresh off a strong output at the recent WGI Dallas Regional, scoring 88.400 all the way back on March 20. Only one group — Eklipse, which finished 12th in 2019 — has broken that score since, earning a 91.200 on March 27. 

Allegiance and Vox Artium — 2019’s sixth and seventh place finishers — are both groups to keep an eye on as well; each scored within the high 80s in the final weekend of March.

5. Second Repeat?

Pride of Cincinnati has already done this before, so it’s not impossible.

While Color Guard Independent World title repeats are rare — there’s been just one in the 21st century — Pride proved in 2016 and 2017 (yes, that’s the one) that they’re not out of the question.

So, now that history has been made, Pride surely hopes that same history will repeat itself.

As mentioned above, Pride of Cincinnati enters World Championships with a lead of 2.6 points on its closest head-to-head “regular season” competitor, Onyx. But in recent years, it’s been Paramount that has provided the hottest competition, stopping Pride’s three-peat attempt in 2018 and earning the silver medal.

It’s been three years since the last WGI World Championships, and as has been mentioned, the majority of Independent World groups haven’t seen each other yet — including these two. But with Pride of Cincinnati and Paramount combining for the last four IW gold medals and the last two silvers, it’ll be interesting to see if their prominence remains a storyline at 2022’s Finals. 

And clearly, both groups have plenty of competition for this year’s top spots. As of today, top scores around the country, in IW competition, are as follows: 

• Pride of Cincinnati — 93.500 — March 20
• Diamante — 93.400 — March 27
• Blessed Sacrament — 92.000 — March 27
• Paramount — 91.500 — March 27
• Onyx — 90.900 — March 20