A Day for the Record Books

Saturday, October 13. The temperature reached 86° F with not a cloud in the sky. The Blue Coat Regiment Marching Band made its 2018 Florida Marching Band Championships season debut at the Lecanto High School Panther Pride Invitational Marching Band Festival—and it would be a day to remember.

After an early morning departure from Riverview, the band began its warm-up—the first of two as this regional was done in a prelims/finals format—at 12:15pm, and in another hour it was time for their first performance. It would be almost another two hours before the results from prelims would be in, but it was worth the wait!

The band earned a score of 68.825 and 2nd place for the first portion of the competition, which placed them in performing at the penultimate spot for finals right before the Steinbrenner High School Marching Warrior Brigade, the champions from prelims. 5:30pm came around, and so did the second warm-up of the day. By 7:00pm the band was off the field and awaiting the results from finals. 

7:53pm. Anticipation had been buzzing as places 11th through 3rd were announced. In 2nd place… Steinbrenner High School with a score of 71.825.

The Blue Coat Regiment had earned the grand championship—the first earned at an FMBC regional in the school’s history—with a score of 73.750. In addition, the band earned overall awards for Best General Effect, Best Visual and Best Color Guard.

On Riverview’s first ever time performing in both prelims and finals at the same event, they earned the grand championship and made history.

A huge thank you goes out to all of our staff members, our Booster Board and our amazing volunteers for all of the dedication and hard work given in support of our students!!

The band has its next performance on Saturday, October 27 at Gaither High School for the annual Florida Bandmasters Association District 7 Marching Music Performance Assessment.