TexasStrangers

Unless something crazy happens and the UIL cutoffs numbers rise a bit I see several schools competing at 4A for the last time in the 2025 school year. I bet some schools will survive but just barely.

I was at the Celina Competition they hosted this year to watch Celina, North Lamar, Farmersville and Mineola and a person working there told me they are in the process of building a 2nd high school. I know there is a tremendous amount of school construction going on there.

Well under the current threshold yes, but UIL always raises the cutoffs to try and keep an even number of schools in each classification. There were several schools last year that were over the threshold for going up to 4A and going up to 5A but when UIL released the cutoffs they stayed where they were because the cutoffs got raised. I figured Panther Creek is a 100% moving up. I might be wrong but last year the school was only 9th/10th grade right and they added 11th this year?

I think you will see several of the usual players that are involved on a yearly basis. I do think based on student counts that were turned in for this year and if the trend continues next year then there will be several schools jumping to 5A for the 2026 yr. Of course the question would be where would the cutoff number be. I expect the number to go up but how much is to be determined.

Mineola did it 3 times in a row in 3A before getting 2nd place last year. They won their 4th State Title this year out of the last 5 Competitions.

UIL many years ago use to post the Raw scores from each Judge in each State Competition so you could actually see how close the scoring was. Now, they only post rankings from each judge on the schools. So, if a school was ranked 2nd and another 3rd. You don't know how far apart it was or was it really close. The directors have the raw scores but most of them do not share that stuff online.

Prelims looked to be a blowout on the score card. The Finals had the top 3 separated by 2pts. Panther Creek/Davenport tied but because 4 of the 7 judges had Panther over Davenport so Panther gets 2nd.

Anyone live streaming the results?

Brand new judges in finals

I know several years ago UIL use to post the ordinals after the contests online so people could see how close it was and then they stopped doing it and now just show you placement for each judge.

So Panther Creek, Sulphur Springs, China Springs, Celina and Davenport are the Top 5 in some order after prelims.

The directors typically get ordinals and then they shared them if they want. Most directors don't share them.

I didn't get to see the shows but I guess something happened in the Rivercrest show from them to go from a 2-2 in Visuals to a 6-5 which hurt them big time. Congrats to all the winners.

I predicted they would be around 5th which is where they finished. I didn't think they would win with having a new director this year and getting beat by both Mineola at Princeton and also getting beat by Commerce at BOA Prosper.

It is me or was the prelim scoring some of the craziest scoring I have seen in quite some time. I heard from a couple of schools that one of the judges had an issue and was replaced before the contest by someone from out of state and the scores were crazy.

Class 3A Final Results 10th Hitchcock 9th Orange Grove 8th Holiday 7th C.H. Yoe 6th Clifton 5th Whitesboro 4th Raymondville 3rd Redwater 2nd Atlanta 1st Mineola

Band directors do but unless they give it out then nobody else knows. The judges score sheets will not be public until after Finals.

Class 3A Finals Performance Schedule 9:30 Redwater 9:15 Raymondville 9:00 Atlanta 8:45 Mineola 8:30 Whitesboro 8:15 C.H Yoe 8:00 Holiday 7:45 Clifton 7:30 Orange Grove 7:15 Hitchcock

In no order Atlanta Redwater Mineola Howe Holiday Whitesboro Raymondville Commerce Queen City Winnsboro

There are quite a few to watch that are the usual top bands (Atlanta, Mineola, Redwater, Whitesboro, Commerce, Cameron Yoe) and a few others who I expect to step it up.

Anyone you are looking forward to seeing?

Yes, good luck to everyone today. I'm grabbing some breakfast and heading that way to watch. Anyone else watching today?

Right, since they split the military bands I don't recall any of them wanting to compete in Area because most of the time regardless of good they perform they would never earn enough points to beat a decent open show band. Show bands are judged on a different scale and have more opportunities to earn points.

It's pretty common thing in UIL events. If 10 schools go to finals then the schools that were 6th-10th draw to see who plays first in the first half of Finals and the schools that are 1-5 in Prelims draw to see who plays first in the 2nd half of Finals. This is the reason why you want to have a good run in Prelims to not only get into Finals but get into the 2nd half. However, just because you get in the 2nd half or 1st half of finals does not guarantee anything. I have seen schools have an average prelims, perform in the first half and knock it out of the park and moved up to medal at the end.

Yup, it's very close this year with Mineola/Redwater/Atlanta. They were all separated by 3pts at Area.