Five Girls and A Guy: Drill Team Region 2014

The night before region I had signed up to host their team night. Since it was close to Valentines and they were going to watch their region kiss video, I decorated with lips and kisses. It turned out cute and was very easy. They also decorated their cars to drive to region and gave each other back rubs and got a cute dance charm to wear.

This year Region was interesting to say the least. Last year there were some hard feelings from another team in region that didn't get to go to state. Their coach was so upset about it she wrote a letter to every drill coach in the state saying she felt they should have got to go too and a lot of stuff about how the Eshelles got to go and they didn't. So I was wondering how that would affect region this year. The way state works is the first 4 places in region get to go to state. The problem with that in only 5 of the 7 schools in our region have drill teams so only one team doesn't get to go. But i guess if you place 1st place in a routine but come in last overall you get to still go to state and perform that one routine (we found all this out first hand this year). So to make a long story short, we started region 1/2 late because we later found out the coach from the same team that complained last year was complaining about the order her team had to dance in the dance routine, which was first no one ever wants to go first. After getting the administration involved the other coaches voted to just leave it. I think by her complaining she knew it would help her get higher scores (they ended up getting 2nd in that category and they were not good). Anyway the girls did awesome in all of their 3 routines. I picked them to place 3rd in military probably 3 or 4 in dance (Dixie had a huge mess up that their coach even said they shouldn't have placed in dance but they did, making it so we didn't place) and 1st in our character routine. When it came time for the placing we didn't place in military or dance which by that time the girls and all of us parents were in shock. We did place 1st in our character however. So after all this and everyone coming up to us and the coach saying they couldn't figure out what happened that snow canyon really got jipped. After we all cried and came home Jor got a text from her coach saying that they got a penalty in military that shouldn't have been a penalty. They have been to 3 competitions and have never been penalized for this supposed illegal ending they did. That is the reason they do these competitions is to make sure that all of their routines have no penalties and are leagal for region. Before region stated the judges told the coaches that they would be notified right after they got a penalty on any of their routines. The coach was not notified during any part of region. it was only on their judging sheets. So she went to the school got her rule book looked through it and didn't find anywhere that what they had done was a penalty. She called the UHSAA and they called her back and told her. They call this a blown call. But since the competition was over there was nothing they could do about it. She said the call wasn't even made by the penalty judge but by the judges themselves (which is not what they are even supposed to be looking at in a routine). So basically without our penalty we would have placed 3rd in military and we would have come in 3 overall for region. But i think the judges were trying to make everyone supposedly happy but letting us go to state for one stinking routine and giving the other team that didn't go last year a chance to go. This sport is so hard sometimes because of things like this. We figured with the way everyone from this region placed at state (the team that complained didn't even place in anything at state) we would of come in between 3 or 5 overall at state if we would have been there like we should of.

All of the parents were so proud of the way the girls handled themselves that day they went to each team and cheered for them at state and at region they still stood and did their cheer and stuck together as a team even though they were all heartbroken. All in all this was a good learning opportunity for jor of how sometimes life just isn't fair, but it's how you handle that disappointment that's make you a better person.