Muncie, IN, welcomed the DCI tour to Ball State University over the weekend. As always, Music for All's Summer Symposium was happening at the same time, meaning the stadium was filled with ecstatic band kids from all over the Midwest. Fans were also treated to an encore of 30 yards worth of drummers.

Friday night was full of entertainment and full of interesting results within the finer details of the scores.

Color Guard Toss-Up

If you saw the recaps for Friday night's show, the one thing that sticks right out is the spread from top to bottom in the color guard sub-caption of visual. Let's start at the top.

The Cavaliers earned first for the night with a 14.50. That's not terribly surprising but very commendable considering the section's recent improvement over the past year and a half. Carolina Crown was behind by a solid amount with a 14.10.

Now it gets interesting. Crossmen earned third in the sub-caption with a 13.80, followed Blue Stars scoring a 13.20, Colts with a 13.10, and Phantom with a 13.00. Madison Scouts placed seventh with a 12.70. Although some of these may be surprising, the same corps competed on Sunday night in La Crosse, WI.

This time, the order went The Cavaliers (15.20), Phantom Regiment (14.40), Blue Stars (14.30), Crossmen (14.20), Madison Scouts (13.10), and Colts (12.90)—very different results. 

Phantom Regiment showed the most improvement over the two days with a growth of 1.40 points. 

All of the corps will see each other once again this weekend at DCI Minnesota, so it will be interesting to see where the cards fall as they progress along the summer tour.

Star-Crossed

In 2017, Blue Stars and Crossmen often found their scores being announced right alongside one another. It seems that in 2018 their rivalry may continue. After trading the lead back and forth many times last season, Crossmen come out on top in their first meeting of 2018.

However, Blue Stars are very much not out of the fight, only being a quarter of a point behind the San Antonio corps. In fact, the two corps tied in visual with a score of 20.40 and Blue Stars took the music caption by a spread of 0.35.