So I was back creeping on the results of the captions and I think there is a typo. For Best Male Soloist, I think it is supposed to be Aaron Waples, not Aaron Waffles. Though that would be a pretty sweet last name!
NO. No. No. This is the most disappointing thing in the entire world. When they announced it, they said Waffles and people laughed because it was the best last name. Don't ruin that for the world, Samuel.
So I was back creeping on the results of the captions and I think there is a typo. For Best Male Soloist, I think it is supposed to be Aaron Waples, not Aaron Waffles. Though that would be a pretty sweet last name!
I worked overnight 10pm-8am the night before this competition. I was laying in bed on Saturday, attempting to sleep because I had to be at work at 7:30PM that night again. Well, needless to say, I couldn't fall asleep so I just decided to make the 12 minute drive down to Hinton.
I got there during the break, so I just missed Westwood.
Non-Finalists
Marshall - This was probably one of the better Marshall shows I have ever seen. Your ballad.. the guy who sings and plays guitar. Man, major props. And that band was just.. wow! Super impressive. Definitely deserved that best band award. Congratulations on third place in 3A.
Carroll - You guys finished quite well in finals at Emmetsburg, so I was very excited to watch you all. After seeing the struggles you've encountered over the past few years, it was nice to see you guys back with a solid show!
Finalists
LeMars - I love you guys. I really, really do. You know this. But I have to be brutally honest. This was an underwhelming show. I may be over-critical because I am an alumni, but I just have come to expect a bit more from an LCHS program. Your vocals are beautifully sung, but way too quiet. The ballad (Omaha Westside ASTC version) got SO close to making it, but fell just short. Still beautiful, though. The choreography was clean, but it just lacked energy and was easy. Regardless of my critical thoughts, you guys have had a fantastic year. 3 for 3 on finals this season. Congrats!
Center Point Urbana - In my opinion, you guys got snuffed. Your version of Titanium was great and there were many points in the show where I had goosebumps. Gorgeous vocals and great choreo. After daytime, I had you guys way higher. You guys definitely had the best looking dresses of the day, too. (The girls around me were oo-ing and ahh-ing). Like I've mentioned many times, I love you guys coming to NW Iowa and I hope you return
Side note for CP-U: Your guys were the most talked about guys by the women around me. I believe the words "tall", "lanky" and "attractive" were being thrown around quite a bit. Props
Bellevue West - I must admit I didn't know much about you guys. You had beautiful vocals -- no doubt about that. Unfortunately, other than that, I just didn't see much. Choreography was a bit all over the place and a few of your group members looked like they didn't want to even be on the stage. We were all very surprised to hear your daytime placement, as we all had you quite a bit lower. But regardless of a group of alumni's opinions, congratulations on 2nd in 4A and your overall finish!
Westwood - I didn't see you Which sucks because I have heard so much about your show this year. Congrats on your finish!
Bishop Heelan - Beautiful vocals. The first half of the show is just so, so strong. I was ridiculously impressed and for a while there, really worried for Sioux Falls Washington. However, the second half of the show dropped energy quite a bit and left me wanting more. I heard that you guys brought it in finals, though! Congratulations on a wonderful season!
Sioux Falls Washington - What can I say? Hands down best group of the day, no questions asked. After your daytime performance, we all would have been content with handing you the GC trophy then and there. The first half of the show is good, but nothing special. Solid vocals and solid choreography. However the second half of your show... holy wow. The vocals, the choreography, the set, the everything. SO POWERFUL. It was just so so good. It was about time. I have been a fan of ClaCo since the middle 2000's, and the past few years have been a huge struggle for yall. But man, SO GLAD YOU'RE BACK. Congratulations on your 2GC season!
All of these opinions are on the daytime shows, as I had to leave to go to work after daytime awards. It was a solid lineup and I a very glad that I went -- even if I was awake for 42 hours straight.
I do have one complaint. Why must Hinton's high school be at the top of a giant hill with a very tiny parking lot? Having to park two blocks down a very steep hill..... not fun!
Okay, this has nothing to do with midle school results but for the people who attended, can we take a moment to appreciate Hinton Middle School's Exhibition show? Their closer was AWESOME. It was a medley of random songs we all know and love like Hound Dog, Thrillar, YMCA, and literally like 15 others. It brought the house down. Plus it was adorable. Oh, especially when one of the songs in the medley was Bye Bye Bye by N'Sync and you just know that they don't understand why the crowd was laughing.
Yeah, that was just a genuine highlight of the competition.
Now that the majority of these schools have competed, I'm going to put in some early predictions:
GC: Sioux Falls Washington
1RU: Heelan
2RU: Westwood
3RU: Bellevue West
4RU: Center-Point Urbana
5RU: Le Mars.
Finals Results
Grand Champions - Sioux Falls Washington - Classic Connection
1st Runner-Up - Sioux City Bishop Heelan - Harmonia Mundi
2nd Runner-Up - Westwood - The Rebelaires
3rd Runner-Up - Bellevue West - West Connection
4th Runner-Up - Center Point-Urbana - Summit Street Singers
5th Runner-Up - LeMars - Crimson & Black
Best Vocals, Best Choreography - Sioux Falls Washington
Grand Champions - Sioux Falls Washington - Classic Connection
1st Runner-Up - Sioux City Bishop Heelan - Harmonia Mundi
2nd Runner-Up - Westwood - The Rebelaires
3rd Runner-Up - Bellevue West - West Connection
4th Runner-Up - Center Point-Urbana - Summit Street Singers
5th Runner-Up - LeMars - Crimson & Black
Best Vocals, Best Choreography - Sioux Falls Washington
Prep
1 Center Point Urbana Illumination
2 Heelan Pinnacle
3 Heelan Magnifique
1A
1. Laurens Marathon
2A.
1 Westwood
2 Sheldon
3 Sioux Center
3A
1 Heelan
2 LeMars
3 Marshall
4A
1 Sioux Falls Washington
2 Belllevue West
3 Center Point Urbana
Best Crew: Sioux Center
Best Band: Marshall
Best Male Soloist (they did gc and 1ru... gc gets free tuition to show choir camp at morningside college)
1 Aaron Waffles..... not even kidding on that name... south obrien
2 Joe Donnely from Westwood
Best Female Solo
1 Girl from SF Washington
2 Girl From Marshall
Finalists in Performance Order
LeMars
Bellevue West
Sioux Falls Washington
Center Point Urbana
Westwood
Bishop Heelan
I'm not going to put up predictions because let's be real, we all know who I hate and who I want to win. SO all I'm asking is...
WHO'S GOING TO BE THERE????
Because I am. And I want to see some of your shining faces. Find me. I'll be the one having to be restrained from getting on the stage myself.
Good luck Crimson and Black!
KENZ WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME YOU WERE COMING BACK FOR THIS?
I was going to get work off but no one was coming home so I decided to just work instead. UGH.
I'm not going to put up predictions because let's be real, we all know who I hate and who I want to win. SO all I'm asking is...
WHO'S GOING TO BE THERE????
Because I am. And I want to see some of your shining faces. Find me. I'll be the one having to be restrained from getting on the stage myself.
Predictions!!!
GC: Sioux Falls Washington
1ru: Heelan
2ru: Westwood
3ru: CPU
4ru: lemars
5ru: Carroll, Marshall, etc.....
Sioux Falls has been having a prettty good year and I think they might win this one. Heelan will definately be fighting for keeping their GC title though!!!
GC: Sioux Falls Washington (Sweep)
1RU: Bishop Heelan
2RU: Westwood
3RU: Center Point-Urbana
4RU: Carroll
5RU: LeMars
Rationale: Sioux Falls Washington is having a strong year. Their vocals are solid and their choreography is clean. Their band isn’t too shabby as well. They will sweep and win by a large margin. Hopefully they will pave a way for more 4A schools to come to this competition. Bishop Heelan ia having the year they have had in a while. They’ll put out a solid performance and they’ll most likely go into finals 2nd. They need to watch out for Westwood who could easily hop them in finals. Westwood is pretty good this year. Their vocals are better than they’ve been in previous years and I could see them hopping places in finals even if they don’t score high in the day. Center-Point Urbana is having a strong year. I could see them doing better than this in finals. Their choreography has higher difficulty than other groups competing and that will pose as an advantage for them. Carroll is a strong group that produces pretty solid performances. They could hop some places because 1RU-5RU will be really tight. They could use a little work on choreography but they probably have improved in these past few weeks. I have LeMars 6th. I just saw them at Sing All about it and I really liked their show. Their choreography could use some refining but it is where it needs to be. Where they really need to improve is vocals. The pitch and technique is good but just give us MORE. You guys could really do well here if you’ve improved on these things. These are just opinions so don’t hate me.
The best part about Hinton's competition is that it is a showcase of smaller groups. And the final results are always close. And this years competition probably has the most talent Hinton has seen since 2009, like I already mentioned. The final results could honestly go many, many different ways.
My placement predictions:
GC. Sioux Falls Washington
1RU. Bishop Heelan
2RU. Westwood
3RU. Center Point Urbana
4RU. LeMars
5RU. Carroll
Also in consideration for finals: Bellevue West, Marshall, Sheldon, and Sioux Center.
Sioux Falls Washington has a great show this year. Their theme and the set up is really cool. I expect them to win this competition pretty easily.
Bishop Heelan should be second. They're having one of their strongest years since the days of Timm Huggenburger and the class of 2010.
Westwood could jump Heelan. Their show is a complete questionmark to me. They were supposed to have one of their best shows ever, but they haven't placed as high as most expected. Will be very interesting to see how they do here, especially considering their lowest placement ever in the entire history of Hinton's competition is 1RU.
Center Point Urbana is one of my favorite choirs. Their shows are just great and I love them coming to Hinton. They've been having a wonderful year.
I put LeMars as 4RU simply because they haven't lost to Carroll in over four years. LeMars needs to have louder vocals, but luckily Hinton's gym is the perfect place for a quiter-volume group to thrive. The sound really travels in the "barn". This should benefit LeMars. Their choreo is mostly clean and works well, so no worries there. Its just those dang vocals.
Carroll had a very nice finish at Emmetsburg. Glad to see they are competitive after a couple years of not so good shows.
Bellevue West finished well at Omaha North's competition, grabbing best vocals even. But I don't know enough about them or their history. They've never really been that competitive.
Marshall won best band at FAME Hollywood. What an accomplishment! But until they place, I just don't see putting them up into the predictions. I sometimes base these smaller competitions on mutual competitions of the past with LeMars, and Marshall has never beaten LeMars. So this is why I keep them down here. This weekend at SF Washington could change that, though.
Sheldon won the 1A/2A division at Emmetsburg. They always have a very clean show. I haven't seen them this year, but they could very well sneak up into the finals.
Sioux Center always saves their best for Hinton. In the past, no matter where Sioux Center finished at past competitions, they jumped up drastically at Hinton. Could they do it again? We will see.
These could change after this weekends competitions, but for now this is what I got.
GC: Sioux Falls Washington (Sweep)
1RU: Bishop Heelan
2RU: Westwood
3RU: Center Point-Urbana
4RU: Carroll
5RU: LeMars
Rationale: Sioux Falls Washington is having a strong year. Their vocals are solid and their choreography is clean. Their band isn’t too shabby as well. They will sweep and win by a large margin. Hopefully they will pave a way for more 4A schools to come to this competition. Bishop Heelan ia having the year they have had in a while. They’ll put out a solid performance and they’ll most likely go into finals 2nd. They need to watch out for Westwood who could easily hop them in finals. Westwood is pretty good this year. Their vocals are better than they’ve been in previous years and I could see them hopping places in finals even if they don’t score high in the day. Center-Point Urbana is having a strong year. I could see them doing better than this in finals. Their choreography has higher difficulty than other groups competing and that will pose as an advantage for them. Carroll is a strong group that produces pretty solid performances. They could hop some places because 1RU-5RU will be really tight. They could use a little work on choreography but they probably have improved in these past few weeks. I have LeMars 6th. I just saw them at Sing All about it and I really liked their show. Their choreography could use some refining but it is where it needs to be. Where they really need to improve is vocals. The pitch and technique is good but just give us MORE. You guys could really do well here if you’ve improved on these things. These are just opinions so don’t hate me.
It is extremely awkward to see Hinton's competition with a 4A class. I do believe this is the first time in the history of the competition that this is the case.
Hinton Soundsational 2013
Which sucks because I have heard so much about your show this year. Congrats on your finish!
