With its first competition already completed, the Grand Pacer Marching will compete four more times this month, including a performance in the Buckeye Invitational this weekend at The Ohio State University.

Marching Band Director Bill Fowles said the band’s first competition took place two weeks ago at the 47th Hilliard Bradley Marching Band Invitational and said the band earned a rating of “excellent,” only one rating below “superior,” the top rating in Ohio Music Education Association competitions.

“We had a really strong performance,” Fowles said.

In addition to the “excellent” rating, Fowles said the band received valuable feedback that it used to improve over the last two weeks.

“It was nice to get comments from the adjudicators knowing that we had a couple weeks here to really get the rest of our show on the field and make some of the changes from their recommendations so that way we’re in a good spot going out next week,” Fowles said Friday.

Fowles said he was “a little disappointed” the band did not earn a “superior” rating like it had at all its competitions last year but said he’s still proud of the band.

“I try and tell them that our responsibility going out is to always make sure that we’re feeling that we’ve done our best when we get off the field,” Fowles said. “So, spirits were pretty high when we walked off the field. We knew it wasn’t a perfect run of the show, but we felt really good about where we were. You’re obviously a little disappointed when you hear that you didn’t get your superior rating. … We missed it by a really small margin. Being able to hear what (the judges) said, I told the kids that if we make some minor adjustments here, we’ll definitely reach our goal next time out.”

The band will compete twice on Saturday: the Canal Winchester Marching Band Invitational at 12:30 p.m. and the Buckeye Invitational at 5:30 p.m. in Ohio Stadium.

“It’ll be a busy day but being able to cap it off with the Buckeye Invitational is pretty special,” Fowles said. “We’re excited to be able to do it.”

Over the summer, Fowles praised the band for the speed that it was learning its show, “A Girl in Red,” but warned the band that progress would slow when the school year started because students will be much busier and have more things to focus on.

“We hit a patch where things slowed down a bit, but we had a really good week of practices this week,” Fowles said, adding that the whole show will be on the field for next weekend’s competitions. “It’s going to be great.”

The band will then compete in the Thomas Worthington Invitational on Oct. 19. Fowles said the band will perform the entire show at a parent preview before the competition at 3 p.m. at Cornell Stadium.

After Thomas Worthington, the band hopes to compete in State Marching Band Finals at Hilliard Bradley on Oct. 26. Fowles said he is not worried about the band missing out on state finals.

“They’re a good group of kids,” Fowles said. “They are playing well, they’re marching well. I don’t see any reason why we should be worried about not making it to state finals.”

Glenn Battishill can be reached at 740-413-0903.