The Bridgewater-Raritan High School Marching Band ended another successful season at the New Jersey Marching Band Directors Association state championship performance.

Bridgewater-Raritan placed third in its division, AA,  with a score of 92.7 during the competition on October 30, 2022, at The College of New Jersey in Ewing.

A year earlier, Bridgewater-Raritan’s Marching Band captured the state championship.

The Prowler was able to gain the opportunity to speak with the drum major for the marching band. 

The drum major is the main student leader of the marching band; they also conduct the marching band and keep them together musically during the show. This year, Jasmine Saini, a kind and motivated junior helped lead the band’s show “Going For Gold” to success. The Prowler spoke with Jasmine and learned about her insight into the band, the feelings she had before the final show, and how much work went into putting “Going For Gold” together.

Jasmine explained how “I’ve been nervous before every show, since every performance is a totally new experience, and that’s always scary. But before states, I felt a lot calmer, since I trusted in all of the work we had done as a band throughout the whole season, and I knew we would perform well. We had come a long way, and our last performance was very representative of that.”

She also explained how “I feel really good about how we ended the season! When we started the season with band camp in August, with many people learning how to march or spin flags for the first time and taking many reps under tempo, it was hard to believe that we would one day have a complete show to perform for adjudication. 

But thanks to everyone’s dedication and hard work, especially in the last two weeks of our season, this show has grown so much more than any of us could have expected! We learned from our setbacks and we worked to top all of our successes. It’s been beautiful to see from my perspective, and I was very satisfied when I climbed down from the podium after states.”

From Jasmine’s words, it is easy to discover that the marching band students put in a great effort to bring their show in front of judges. However, through nervousness and worry, the Bridgewater-Raritan band members were able to persevere and excel to the point where they received an excellent score.

Long hours of practice and great mindsets helped bring the band to where it is now, which is among the finest in the entire state of New Jersey.