Last weekend Lockport’s State Champion Winterguard team performed at the WGI competition in Ohio. The team placed nineteenth out of a hundred and twenty-four teams and was the only Illinois team in the SA class to make it to finals!

The Winterguard team performed their five-minute show called, This is Love. The show was a hit, and Winterguard member Allie Washington said, “it felt like they were celebrities every time they went to a competition.” The Winterguard director John Collier, assistant director Melissa Pietruszynski, and technician/choreographer Katie Mahoney created the This is Love show. The inspiration for the show was the love director Collier felt for his grandparents. The show goes through an emotional performance by the team expressing their love for their loved ones. The show contained multiple sections of rifle tossing, flag tossing, and dancing. The colors and props are what really made the show stand out. Thanks to the amazing parent support system, all of the props were handmade with love.

This is the first time in four years the Lockport Winterguard team has attended the WGI competition in person. In 2021, WGI hosted an online competition, but as most of the Lockport team described, “it wasn’t the same as an in-person competition.” 

For almost all of the guard members, this was their first time at a very large competition. Winterguard member Zoie West described the experience as “an amazing learning experience and was a core memory of getting to perform in front of two-thousand people!”

The Lockport Winterguard ended their season with a great win, and Lockport could not be any happier for them! Go, Porters!!