Tears unexpectedly began welling in drum major Dante Salina’s eyes. He twisted his body to the side, clenched his mouth shut with a balled-up fist and took a deep breath. He earned it.
“This has been my 10th time performing in this stadium and that was the best performance I’ve ever had here,” he said. “And I’m an age-out.”
Salina’s eyes remained upright as continued to speak. He kept staring at the field. Perhaps he wanted to relive the show. Perhaps he had to keep staring because he couldn’t believe what just happened. Not with the show, that much wasn’t a massive surprise. What Surf pulled off this year, though? That wasn’t expected by anyone.
After four straight years of finishes in the high-twenties at the DCI World Championship Prelims which kept them out of a Friday Semifinals performance, Surf rallied together and produced what will go down as one of the best years in the corps’ 10-year history as a World Class corps.
Jersey Surf earned 24th place at Thursday's DCI World Championship Prelims in Indianapolis.
“When we first came in during the winter camps, the brass staff was very concerned because we had a small group but we easily sound like the number of people we have plus a half,” third-year baritone player Ethan Sears said. “We are putting out so much sound for the size we have.”
Added Salina: “We came in thinking we were not going to do good because we had such a small horn line and things were new and things were changing,” Salina said. “But we locked together throughout all adversity and if we make Semis, that would just show to all the members, ‘We did it.’”
Salina can remove his “If.” With a score of 76.413 and a 24th-place finish at Prelims, Surf earned a spot at Friday’s DCI World Championship Semifinals for the first time since 2014.
Their journey began in early July at their MetLife Stadium debut. Marching in front of a home crowd, the Camden County, New Jersey corps recorded an inaugural score of 63.950, almost a seven-point bump from its first show a year ago.
From there Surf kept rolling, hitting scores they achieved in 2018 sometimes weeks earlier. By the time they rolled into the Alamodome less than three weeks into their tour, Surf had nearly eclipsed its DCI World Championship Prelims score from last season.
“I stuck with Surf my second year in drum corps and seeing how far we’ve come in four years, beating a decade's worth of scores so suddenly,” Salina said, “There's a lot of pride.”
Jersey Surf performs at Thursday's DCI World Championship Prelims in Indianapolis.
On Thursday, Jersey Surf returned to Indianapolis for the first time since its 69.925-point performance at last year’s Prelims. This year, their performance meant a bit more.
At one point, Surf was a Semifinals regular, appearing on Friday night of World Championships Week in its first six years under the distinction as a World Class corps, finishing as high as 20th in 2009 and 2012.
But with that stretch now in the rearview mirror, the corps’ return to the Top 25 signifies a remarkable upward trajectory.
“It’s so great,” Sears said. “It’s been five years of us really pushing and we just finally made the grade. So many alumni have been pouring out, they've just been pushing us all over the place. It’s been great.”
View a complete schedule of DCI World Championship events
Watch Surf's DCI World Championship Semifinals performance LIVE on FloMarching.com