Tiger band back in the fray Saturday

The Douglas High School Fighting Tiger Marching Band will be back in competition this weekend at Galena High School for "The Performance of Champions" Marching Band Competition.

The Tigers will be going up against nearly a dozen marching bands from Northern Nevada, including Spring Creek, Dayton, Sparks and Reno.

Douglas High's marching band is coming off a winning Saturday where they brought home five trophies from the McQueen Extravaganza in Reno.

Band Director Bill Zabelsky said the Tigers brought home trophies for general effect, third place for sweepstakes, third place for best band, first place for best drum major and first place for best brass.

"We did very well at McQueen," Zabelsky said. "They moved us up in the divisions and some of the bigger schools down, so we were not in our normal division where we would have taken first place."

However, he said there were only 13 points out of 1,000 between the Tigers' third place and the winner's score.

"They're looking good," he said of the 73 members of this year's marching band. "They're really crisp."

The band's theme this year is Latin rhythms and the title of the program is "Conquistador" after trumpeter Maynard Ferguson's version of the song. As part of the theme, the band will also perform Santana's "Evil Ways." The band is also performing an original Latin piece.

After the Galena show, the band will have a one-week break from competition and then will be back out to perform in the University of Nevada, Reno, field show on Oct. 25.

The following Saturday, the band will march in the Nevada Day Parade and then annual compete in the field show competition at Carson High School.

"We'll march in parade and then come back then do field show competition," he said.