By Taylor Haggerty

Central’s winterguard teams made the trip to Dayton, Ohio for Winterguard International’s

world-level competition on Thursday, April 11. The Open Guard finished at the semi-finals
round with a score of 82.9, and a season high of 83.5 in the preliminary round. The A Guard
competed in the preliminary round only, and finished out their season with the score of a 73.85.

The international competition featured groups from all over, including Great Britain, the
Netherlands, and Japan. It is held in Dayton every year, beginning with the A-class preliminaries
on Thursday and concluding with the World-Class finals on Saturday night. Over the course
of these four days, guards can perform up to three times in order to achieve the status of world
champions in the sport. Both independent and scholastic teams compete.

“It’s an unforgettable experience,” said junior Meghan Geoffrey. “Going to WGI is definitely my
favorite part of the season.”

Central’s Open Guard has made it to finals in their class twice in the past, once in the 2012
season and once in 2009. Finals consists of the top fifteen to sixteen groups in each division,
chosen by a panel of judges who have both participated in and coached the sport for several
years themselves.

Out of the twenty-four groups that made it to semi-finals, Central’s Open Guard finished in
twenty-first, and so were not able to compete in the Open-Class finals.

“It’s hard to know what the judges want to see, so there’s never a guarantee that we’ll do as well
as we did the year before,” explained senior Sam Sheffield. “It was a great performance, though,
so I think it was a nice way to end my senior year.”

The guard will continue to go to Worlds in future years, hopefully to regain their place in Open
class finals and move up to World Class for further success.