With 12 hours of scheduled practices weekly, four hours of individual work, and sitting in intense anticipation through all-day competitions—they are covered in bruises and shin splints. Motivated by passion and a mutual trust in each other, is the Creek winter guard.
During the marching band season in the fall, color guard spins flags, rifles, and sabers alongside the band. During winter into spring though, they compete independently in the Rocky Mountain Color guard Association as winter guard. In 2024 and 2026, they took home the RMCGA regional championship, first in the Scholastic AA division, then another after moving up to Scholastic A.
Creek winter guard battled a tough practice schedule on their journey to the championship. For each competition, they perform a 4.5 minute show. This year, their show, “To the Finish Line,” was track and field-themed. During the season, three times a week, athletes have to attend a rigorous practice schedule to perfect their show.
Injuries are also prevalent in Winter guard, often happening while they are learning a new move and a pole or rifle hits their head.
“A lot of people get shin splints, concussions, and everyone’s ankles hurt right now,” junior captain Sofia Sandvall said.
But even more prevalent than the bruises is the pressure of performing.
“If you have a solo, when you drop, everyone is looking at you, expecting you,” Sandvall said. “And then you drop, it’s in a gym, it’s so loud, and it’s just embarrassing.”
Working individually allows her to practice on skills and memorize moves, while doing group practices, with coach Kayla Kenyon, cultivates how moves interact with one another.
“When we’re with a big group and our practices are three hours, it’s because [Kayla’s] working with different sections,” junior Celia Grant said. “But when you’re working by yourself, you’re doing one skill over and over and over again.”
Kenyon wishes the student body and the community paid more attention to her athletes’ sport and hard work.
“It takes so much time, skill, and dedication, these students are varsity athletes,” Kenyon said by email interview. “The biggest hill [the guard] has to climb is the stigmatization of their sport and it not being ‘important’ simply because it is not known about.”
Kenyon saw how dedicated and respected every other sport at Creek is, so she wanted to push the rest of her students to the excellence that Creek normalizes. According to her, though, the athletes are pushing that standard.
“The winter guard this year was comprised of 17 students who were consistent in their approach and fully committed to everything asked of them.” Kenyon says.
Yet Kenyon has also been a driving force in guard’s recent surge in success, after becoming full-time guard director in 2022. Previously, she’s worked at Fossil Ridge, a school with longstanding marching band and color guard success in Colorado. Before Kenyon, the last championships winter guard brought home was in 2018 and 2013. Now they have two in three years, and now one in the top Colorado division, Scholastic A.
For winter guard, there is no failing because their teammates depend on each other and hold a massive level of trust for each other.
“Once you get on the floor, it’s just about staying composed and knowing that it’s still you,” Sandvall said.
