• Article Photo. Paige Rosonke stands on home plate at the end of the VSHS Band's baseball-themed show.
    Paige Rosonke stands on home plate at the end of the VSHS Band's baseball-themed show.

While many people are familiar with the Friday night contests that take place on football fields all over the country, here in Iowa, Saturday contests are taking place on many of those same fields.

These contests, however, feature high school marching bands.

The Vinton-Shellsburg Marching Band has been practicing throughout the week and performing in contests on Saturdays.

Last Saturday, Oct. 4, the band competed at the Five Seasons Marching Invitational at Kingston Stadium in Cedar Rapids. Next Saturday, Oct. 11, the band returns there for the Iowa High School Music Association State Marching Band Festival.

VSHS Band Director shard this summary of Saturday's performance:

The contest went very well! We improved by 5 points overall from the previous week at Marion which equates to 50 points combined between categories, for a score of 68.2 out of a possible 100. The score was good for 7th place out of 13 competing 3A bands, and would earn us a division I rating at state next week if we earned the same score. We got some great feedback on how to improve from the judges, so we will continue to work on areas that need growth to deliver another quality performance this Saturday.

See more photos of recent half-time performances HERE.