The ISU Naval ROTC drill team will be looking to bring home a trophy this weekend from the Great Plains NROTC Competition at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The Great Plains NROTC Competition is an annual drill meet held at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This two-day event is a friendly competition between drill teams from universities across the Midwest.

Iowa State’s Naval ROTC drill team has spent all semester training for competitions such as the Great Plains NROTC Competition. On March 1 they will be able to put that training into effect.

“The team practiced every Sunday for two hours this semester, as well as extra practices during our lab periods on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we could. We started off pretty basic and continually built up to knowing all the movements. Then we would focus on perfecting the movements from there,” said commander of the drill team James Kokjohn, junior in political science.

According to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln website, the first day of the event is a pre-competition social event for all the drill teams. The pre-competition social event is designed to be a friendly, professional gathering for all drill teams to meet, greet and converse with each other over a large buffet-style meal. 

The second day of the event is reserved for the competition. The events for competition consist of five phases: the inspection of the drill team, a platoon base drill event, a squad base drill event, a color guard event and field meet events. 

Each phase is individually scored and then the team’s scores are added up to an overall score and then compared with the other drill teams to determine who the winner of the competition is. 

The inspection of the drill team is when the team is inspected for proper uniform and is asked knowledge-based questions that all team members should know. For this phase each team will consist of a unit leader and 12 squad members, one of which has to be a female.

The platoon base and squad base events are when the drill team performs basic movements with the rifle while in formation and marching.

The colorguard phase is similar to what one would see at sporting events such as football games. The colorguard consists of five squad members with three color bearers (National Ensign, Navy colors, and Marine Corps colors). This event counts for 25% of the team’s overall score. The colorguard with the highest score shall receive an individual award for the event.

The field meet events are a series of athletic events that the teams partake in. Some of the events include a 500-yard swim, log sit-ups, a pull-up competition, and a tug-of-war.

One hurdle the team might have to overcome is the competition inexperience for most of the team.

“This is my second event personally, but we have some members who have done more. For most of the team, this is their first meet,” Kokjohn said. 

However, the drill team does have experience in the right places to be able to succeed in competition. ISU Naval ROTC drill teams seem to have a good history at drill meets like the one taking place this weekend.

“ISU tends to do pretty well at drill meets. In our trophy shelf there are quite a few first place trophies, so apparently we’re pretty good. The team got third place in squad drill at Memphis last year. I’ve been talking to some of the upperclassmen and I understand that other schools consider ISU to be a very good drill program,” said the vice president of the team, Genevieve Halvorsen, junior in culinary science. 

The way the team has been practicing as of late is inspiring confidence in team leaders as to their chances of doing well this weekend.

“I think we stand a pretty good chance. We have been practicing all this semester and were working with the freshmen last semester. The last few practices especially have shown a lot of progress,” Kokjohn said.

Halvorsen agreed that the team’s hard work will have been worth it.

“I think we’ll do well. We’ve had some trouble getting practice in throughout the year but the team has been very positive and hardworking during the practices that we have had. We’ve come a long way and things have seemed to really click. The main thing is that we’ll go to Lincoln and represent ISU NROTC well and have a great time while doing it,” Halvorsen said.