When most people think of winter guard, they think of some deviation from marching band.
But in reality, winter guard, to its members, is a much more intense and performance-based sport. Winter guard focuses mainly on the technique of tossing flags and ‘weapons,’ which are rifle-shaped batons that members catch after throwing into the air. And while some describe it as a sport, others describe it as family.
“You hear a lot of sports people say, [their team] is their family, but [guard] really is my family,” sophomore co-captain Jillian Mikleton said. “And it’s nice, it’s an activity you look forward to, because it’s performance, but you also get to learn skills.”
Senior co-captain Edie Collier echoed Mikleton’s statement, and attributed the guard’s closeness to the amount of time they spend together. “Our guard is really close, especially because when you spend six to nine hours a week with each other, you get really close,” Collier said.
Additionally, the guard is a place where people have found a sense of belonging at Creek. Junior Lili Foster moved to Colorado from Florida this year, and instantly found home in the winter guard at Creek.
“My parents wanted to make sure that there was a guard here, because it was such an important part of my life back home,” she said. “And it was important to just have a community here when I got here.”
This year, the winter guard is hoping to use their bond to succeed in their competitions. In a regular guard season, where practice starts in November, and then competition season lasts from February through April, members of the team work on honing their catching and throwing skills, but also their strength.
In guard, members agree that it takes a lot of strength in your arm muscles to throw a flag or weapon in an artistic fashion. “[Skills require] muscles that you don’t usually use,” Collier said. “It’s a lot of shoulders and triceps, which aren’t really used in everyday sports other than basketball and baseball.”
Performances are scored holistically, where skills are assessed by the judges and scored zero to 100, and then split into four categories; general, execution, equipment, and body.
“So there’s like ‘general effect,’ and then execution, so how our coach [Kayla Kenyon] writes it, and how the show’s designed is a lot of it freshman Sofia Sandvall said. “And fortunately, we have a very good coach and a very good designer.”
Over the last few seasons, however, the team has noticed a pattern in how they practice, and how it’s impacting their competitions. Mikleton stated that the team often tends to underperform during their practices, which translates to less cohesive competition performances.
“We have a tendency to get really nervous,” Mikleton said. “We don’t ‘perform’ as much during practice as we do in performances. You get to perform and you’re so excited and you’re so ramped up that it’s like you’re throwing something and all of a sudden it’s over rotated, because you have so much energy.”
Currently, the team competes in the Double A bracket, which is a shift upwards from their place last year. Because of this, some members of the team are concerned that the competition this year could be more difficult, but they openly accept the challenge. “Our goal is to just to continue to advance and continue to get better as a group,” Collier said.
Even despite the new competition level, the team has high hopes to place at least in the top three at the state level, especially after seeing how much dedication their team has built up.
“We have been getting a lot better,” Sandvall said. “This marching season was really good, and the last winter guard did really well, and we just keep getting better.”
