The crowd cheers.

They did it again – another first place.

Yet the winning team is nowhere to be found.

This scenario took place on Feb. 2, when winter guard took first place in Scholastic AA at the Edwardsville High School Winter Guard Competition. Not only did the team place first, but they also were promoted to Scholastic A this season.

Will Phillips, junior, said the experience was interesting because winter guard had packed up and left the Edwardsville competition early due to the inclement weather, so they found out later that they scored first. Although Phillips said the ranking wasn’t that surprising in regards to how well winter guard has been competing, he was excited by how high the score was.

“It was four points ahead of Eureka,” Phillips said. “I think it surprised us because we put all this work in and we’re finally getting what we’ve been trying to get for the past couple of years.”

Phillips has been on both winter guard and color guard since freshman year and said winter guard is reaching higher standards as it succeeds in more competitions compared to past years. While Phillips said they had a good show last year, winter guard is ranked first in the division in the state for the show.

“We are 100 percent performing better than previous years,” Phillips said.

To prepare for the competition, Phillips said winter guard has practiced three times a week since November: Tuesday and Thursday at night in the gym, after school on Wednesdays, and weekend camps to prepare for competitions.

Phillips said winter guard has impacted his life by giving him not only a sport, but a second family as well.

“I have a reason to go to school and get good grades to go to practice,” Phillips said. “I have things to do after school other than work now.”

Phillips said winter guard is important because it is the fine arts aspect of sports and takes more practice and skill than many people assume.

“Not everybody knows about winter guard and not everybody knows about the performing arts part of it,” Phillips said. “A lot of people just think we just spin flags for the marching band.”

Jenny Mietzner, junior, said she was extremely excited when she heard the news of placing first because in all of her three years on the team, the team has never place first by themselves in this competition.

Mietzner said winter guard is important to her because it is where she has made some of her best friends, and where she spends about half of her time at. While Mietzner enjoys performing, her favorite part of winter guard is getting to hang out with all of her friends and that they still get to have fun and goof around even under the stress of a competition.

“There’s a lot of different personalities and we’ve learned to all work together through them,” Mietzner said.

Mietzner decided to join guard because she was a part of pit percussion in band in freshman year and saw the color guard performers at practices and performances.

“I noticed behind me there were these really cool people with flags and I saw that they had winter tryouts so I wanted to try it,” Mietzner said.

Melissa Wilson, color and winter guard sponsor, said from November to January, winter guard works on learning the performance and working on technique and training. Wilson said the team has refined the approach towards training and technique this year.

Winter and color guard have already taken first place at two competitions this season: the Mascoutah High School Winter Guard Festival and the Mckendree University Competition.

“I don’t know what it is about this year, but we’ve just really been pushing hard and the kids have had a lot of achievement and success early on in the season,” Wilson said.

Wilson said that the winter guard team was able to build and grow upon the success color guard had in the fall because most of the color guard team mates continue on to join winter guard after the season ends. Winter guard only had one new member join this year.

She said color and winter guard are important because it is an activity that stands out from other sports and hobbies. In the fall, Wilson said color guard gives student the experience to participate in performing at football games, and moving into the winter, the winter guard focuses more on the competitive side of performing

“They have elements of dance as well as skills with tossing so it goes beyond just dancing,” Wilson said. “I think it’s just something different. It’s a different type of activity for our kids to participate in.”