The marching band brought home two trophies — rst overall in Division 2 and first place in High Percussion

— after their first Royal Classic competition Oct. 14.

Thirty total marching bands competed within three different divisions at the Royal Classic. In the previous two seasons, the marching band only performed in one com- petition a year, the Moorpark Battle of the Bands.

“[It] was at the end of the season, around the sec- ond week of November, and both seasons we worked and worked. We only did one performance, sort of to get the experience of being a band,” band director Zachary Borquez said. “This year, we wanted to go to more than one –– we de- cided to go to three.”

The performance itself served as something new to the marching band members as well. It was the first full run through of their routine this season.

“Our show is split up into three movements,” senior and drum major Peter Ye said. “We’ve been practicing them movement by movement so far, but we hadn’t done one straight run through of our entire show. Our first time was at the competition.”

Band members said they were shocked upon learning that they had won first place overall.

“They announced [ first, second and third place] in reverse order, so when they said third and it wasn’t us, we were hoping we were maybe second. When we weren’t second, we just kind of assumed that we didn’t place,” senior Justin Cole said. “Then they said, ‘Oak Park High School, first place’ and we all just freaked out because it came out of nowhere.”

The awards came as a surprise to both the band and the staff –– not many said they expected to walk away with one award, much less two.

“Nobody went into this with any expectation, or care about what place we got in comparison to other groups,” Borquez said. “We just wanted to do the best we could do, and be the best we could be.”