Statesmen Take Top Brass At Susquehanna

For the second week in a row, Empire Statesmen’s horn line was the best on the field, but the Reading Buccaneers are still sailing ahead of the fleet, winning the Sounds of the Susquehanna contest in Binghamton, NY with a score of 89.7. Rochester’s Empire Statesmen were again second to the Bucs, with 87.425. Bushwackers, of Harrison, NJ finished a strong third with 86.875.

All three of the top corps moved up on the scoreboard, and finished in the same position as a week earlier downriver in Lewisburg, PA.

In Binghamton, Syracuse Brigadiers again finished in fourth position, with 80.550. New York Skyliners were fifth with 72.388. The White Sabers showed another week of steady progress to score 66.375.

Statesmen and the Buccaneers, undefeated so far this season, won’t meet again until August 26 in Reading, PA, just a week before the Drum Corps Associates (DCA) championship tournament is held at PAETEC Park Stadium in Rochester on Labor Day weekend. Buccaneers won the initial DCA championship title in 1965 in Milford, Connecticut, and are the defending 2005 DCA champions. Empire Statesmen finished second to the Buccaneers at last year’s DCA finals in Scranton, PA.

The Empire Statesmen, five-time DCA champions, are sponsoring the three-day DCA Labor Day weekend championship tournament this summer and again in 2007. The schedule of weekend events includes individual and ensemble contests, a mini-corps contest, an old-fashioned outdoor drum corps party in downtown Rochester, induction of seven new members into the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame, a concert by nine top U.S. and Canadian alumni corps, and prelims and finals for the competing corps in PAETEC Park Stadium. More than 40 units will participate in events over the weekend.

Nine of the 42 DCA championships from 1965 to 2005 have been held in Rochester: four from 1968 to 1971; four from 1973 to 1976 and one in 1996.

The Empire Statesmen drum and bugle corps is a self-supporting independent group that represents the city of Rochester across the United States and Canada and as far abroad as Europe, the Caribbean and South America. For ticket information about the DCA championships and other events on Labor Day weekend, call (585) 266-2232 or visit the Empire Statesmen Web site at: www.statesmen.org