On Feb. 18, the FHN Winter guard traveled to Warren Central High School in Indianapolis, Indiana for the WGI Indianapolis regional competition. There, they competed with nine other schools, six from Indiana and two from Michigan. Out of those ten schools, only eight of the ten could move on to the final round the next day. The Knights finished ninth place with a score of 63.300, only one-tenth of a point away from Greenwood Community High School from Greenwood, Indiana, who got eighth place.

“I was devastated,” sophomore Essence Green said. “We were that close [to making finals]. Whenever you’re that close, you think ‘maybe is there something I could have something better,’ you start doubting yourself, but then our coach had a really good talk with us, and we have to do better next weekend.”

The winter guard team had been at two competitions previously before traveling to Indianapolis, however, both of those competitions were in-state. One difference that the Knights had compared to all the other schools was the number of girls. The Knights have a total of 11 people on the team, while all the other schools had 20+ on each team.

“We do have a disadvantage but we also have an advantage,” coach John Miller said. “It shows that each of our members has a strength, where as a lot of groups aren’t able to show that each and everyone of their members are strong in every area.”

Scoring wise, this performance was the best performance by the Knights out of their first three competitions. This week, the Knights will be heading to Omaha, where coach Miller is expecting things to turn around.

“I think if they [the girls] go out there and do their job, they should be very successful,” Miller said. “The design of the show is correct, the training has been correct, now I have a young group that needs to do their job.”