The marching band will perform at the UIL state competition at the Alamodome in San Antonio on Nov. 7 and 8. 

“This is a really significant and important competition for a couple of reasons,” band director Andy Sealy said. “[The students] are representing their school and community in these competitive events. It’s an awesome opportunity for our kids [to show] how hard they work and their level of musical and physical maturity in a performance sense.”

UIL is a three stage process; the first stage consists of the band competing against a standard format, which means the band performs and is graded based off of a set rubric. If the band wins, it earns a “First Division” title. With this, the band advances to stage two: the area level. If they are in the top three, they go to stage three: the state level. 

“Unlike a head-to-head football game or athletic event, I cannot control or influence what [other bands] are going to do,” Sealy said. “I can only influence and rehearse what we are going to perform. Then, a panel of judges will score us in a variety of categories and rank us [in comparison to] our peers.”

The band got results for the area competition on Oct. 29, which was a preliminary and finals event. The state contest will work the same way. There are around 42 bands taking part, and Hebron will compete on Nov. 7. Hebron has won first place during this year’s previous UIL competitions, but the marching band aims to put its best effort in the performance.

“You walk out onto the field and as soon as the show starts, it feels electric,” band officer and senior Srushti Agashe said. “[We] treasure those precious nine minutes and do everything that [we] can. What you do on the field, you not only do for yourself, but because you owe it to the people around you that are putting in so much effort as well.”

The color guard will also be performing with the marching band at UIL.

“Reality hasn’t set in yet that [this is going to be] one of my last times performing,” senior captain Kiki Deleon said. “I think that this year we’ve made a lot of progress with [the public opinion of the color guard,] so I look forward to the change socially, with the team and other people.”

Sealy said that the competition is fierce this year. The band has been practicing on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday after school and on Friday mornings in order to heighten their performance.

“More importantly than whether you win or not, it’s about how you and your program develop as musicians; how we develop and grow through this journey,” Sealy said. “At the end of this process, can we be the best version of the Hebron band that we can be? Did we get that out of ourselves? Unfortunately, we can do all of that and some judge can [rank us] 91st. We have no control over what score they write for us. What we do have control over is how we prepare and how we perform.”