Our NJROTC drill team has taken over three first place wins this year alone. One of the first wins they took was Best of the West, which was held at Pueblo West High School. The second win was the NS-1’s at the Naval Science One competition. To continue their winning streak, ROTC took first place at the Mesa Ridge High School Navy competition. They took first and second place with our Spartan One and Spartan Two teams.

The Best of the West competition was one of the first competitions this year. The Armed Regulation team took 1st place overall as well as the Armed Exhibition team. The Unarmed Exhibition team placed 3rd overall. The drill team had a lot of fun and they had an awesome experience over the time they were at the competition at Pueblo West High School.

The Naval Science One Competition was at Doherty High School. The NS-1’s are first year cadets, and they took first in everything except for Color Guard. A cadet in the program, Jayden Wilson stated, “That was the best run through of Unarmed Regulation I have seen!”

The win on February 18th, 2023 was at Mesa Ridge High School. They had two teams for both Armed Regulation and Unarmed Regulation. As well as an Armed Exhibition and Unarmed Exhibition. They took first and second place in both Regulation events as well as the Armed Exhibition. The Unarmed Exhibition team took third place. They got the overall first place trophy as well. This was the only competition that had physical fitness. Some of the cadets took first place in situps and pushups as well as our relay team. They also decided to race against the Marines in which they beat them by a tenth of a second. One of our lady cadets named Lana King got the most push ups out of all the ladies on our team.

They also did well at state. During state we did not get the first place trophy, but they did have fun and gave our best efforts. The Armed Exhibition platoon did very well. The Unarmed Exhibition team placed third. The duo for Unarmed Exhibition placed 3rd as well. Our soloist Petty officer John Warden placed 2nd in the state competition for the Armed Exhibition. Our Regulation teams did good as well in the state competition. The team did very well and gave their best efforts. NJROTC has 1 upcoming competition in the next two weeks. Which is Nationals. They are looking forward to that competition and hoping to win and take home the trophy. Our Armed and Unarmed Exhibition team will have many challenges and competition at nationals because there are many very talented schools from around the nation. So do Armed and Unarmed Regulation teams.

Spartans believe that the drill team will do very well at nationals, because they always give their greatest efforts as well as the upper cadets pushing younger cadets to their limits. Wish them luck!