Saratoga High School Takes Grand Sweepstakes in Cupertino Tournament of Bands

Saratoga High School marched away with top honors at the annual Cupertino Tournament of Bands Oct. 13.

Saratoga won the grand sweepstakes in the 42nd annual competition held at Cupertino High School. The school’s individual awards were earned as first place winners in music sweepstakes in both the parade award and the field show award categories, plus first place awards in marching and showmanship in the field show category.

A video of the band’s performance is attached to this article.

Homestead High School took first place in the field show sweepstakes in the field show award category.

High school bands come from all over the state and in years past have come from as far away as Nevada. Locally, competing schools included Fremont, Milpitas, Lynbrook, Mountain View, Westmont, St. Francis and Wilcox. The entire list of competitors and their point totals can be found on the Tournament of Bands webpage.

The tournament is a “huge” undertaking for the school and Band Director Gilbert Iruegas, who gets a lot of help from Cupertino High School parents.

“I couldn’t do it without (the parents). It takes each and every one of them (to put on the tournament,” he said. “I want to give a huge thank you to the parents. Without them this thing wouldn’t happen year after year.”

Parts of Stevens Creek Boulevard were blocked to make room for the marching bands, which started at Miller and headed down toward Finch, said Iruegas.

Performances were pretty standard in comparison to previous years, Iruegas said, but one performance utilized a prop he’s not seen before—a 30-foot high by 40-foot long horse.