Quartet of corps posts big numbers in 2023 debut

ROCKFORD, Michigan — Under the lights at Rockford High School’s Carlson-Munger Stadium, the 2023 Drum Corps International Summer Tour took its first steps in resounding fashion.

Here’s everything to know from the first night of 2023 competitive action, that featured four of 2022’s DCI World Championship Finalists:

 

 Phantom Regiment
1st Place, 71.300

Phantom Regiment — fresh off of a breakout season in 2022 which saw the corps make a late push into eighth place, a significant jump from 2019’s 12th-place finish — kicked off its 2023 campaign in strong fashion, topping the field with its highest season-opening score in a decade.

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Regiment opened the 2013 DCI Tour with the exact same tally, 71.300, at a June 21 event in Belvidere, Illinois. That year, the corps finished the season among DCI’s top-six scorers.

On Wednesday, the Rockford, Illinois corps outscored the second-place Blue Stars — who ended 2022 one placement ahead of Regiment — by 1.4 points, with top scores in all general effect and music captions, as well as visual analysis. Regiment also defeated Blue Stars by six tenths of a point at the two corps’ first meeting a year ago in Detroit.

 Blue Stars
2nd Place, 69.900

Earning a second-place finish, Blue Stars checked in just a hair away from 70 points, and posted impressive first-place numbers in the visual caption overall, including a standout lead of half a point in visual proficiency.

Blue Stars’ score of 69.900 marks the La Crosse, Wisconsin corps’ strongest opening output since 2010 — a year which saw the corps earn eighth place at the DCI World Championship Finals, having opened the season with a score of 74.000.

 

 Troopers
3rd Place, 66.750

Another one of 2022’s breakout competitors, having earned a 12th-place finalist position for the first time since 2009 after rising all the way from an 18th-place ranking in 2019, Troopers turned heads in the corps’ first 2023 performance.

The Wyoming corps kicked off the organization’s 65th-anniversary season by outscoring its season-opening tally from 2022 by more than a point. Of extra significance? The corps’ debut a year ago came more than a week later on July 8.

Troopers scored third in most captions, but outscored Blue Stars for a second-place ranking in the General Effect 2 caption.

 Colts
4th Place, 65.300

Colts — who also broke into the finalist pool in 2022 for the first time since 2007, taking home 11th place — came out with a strong first effort, outpacing its first 2022 score, earned July 1 in Muncie, Indiana, by 2.95 points. Wednesday’s tally also marked the Dubuque, Iowa corps’ highest season-opening score since 2011. The Colts opened that season with a mark of 68.500 in Woodbury, Minnesota.

Not far behind Troopers, Colts earned a close third-place finish in the visual caption overall, and also finished third in General Effect 1.

All four of Wednesday’s competitors will follow their respective 2023 tour schedules to Muncie, Indiana, where they’ll be joined by fellow 2022 finalists Carolina Crown and The Cavaliers at DCI Central Indiana presented by Music For All on Friday, June 30.

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