Freshman Tristan Muck cheers as the NJROTC’s First Year Freshman Colorguard team wins first place.

On Saturday, January 29, the Canyon Hills High School NJROTC hosted and participated in the first Color Guard and BDI competition since the beginning of the pandemic. Several other ROTC units from San Diego Unified high schools also participated in the event.

“It was exciting because I was on freshman Color Guard,” Muck explains, “it was cool to see my friends win.”

This was not the only win Canyon Hills received that Saturday. They won third place for Varsity Color Guard, and third place for Best Drilled Individual as a freshman.

Freshman Abby Ridgeway says, “it was so amazing to win first place as a freshman.” She was placed as the captain only 2 weeks before the competition.

“Everyone was giving me confidence and supporting me telling me that all the other schools were messing up outside,” Ridgeway comments. This was her first competition.

Canyon Hills High’s NJROTC unit didn’t just win first place once. Canyon Hills NJROTC also won first place for Best Drilled Individual as a senior. Senior Cadet Christian Martin Del Campo took home the gold for the first time in seven years.

“It was such an amazing feeling winning first place,” Martin Del Campo states.“It was constant practicing and learning and training at home and at school, too.”

Muck was a volunteer at the competition on Saturday and still had the opportunity to earn ribbons and achievements like his teammates.

This competition was the first one held in almost 3 years, with new student based leadership and participation.

Martin Del Campo adds, “None of us had competed at this competition before. Only a few of us there had even seen it happen before COVID-19.”

Muck comments on how stressful volunteering was at this event “The amount of people that left and came back but didn’t know where to go after being gone for an hour was insane, on top of the lacrosse team kids coming past.”

Ridgeway looks forward to “competing again this year and next year, hopefully getting the big trophy again.”

Martin Del Campo shares, “It was so important to me to do well at this competition, especially as a senior. I definitely think myself and the unit did an amazing job.”