The NJROTC recently had a drill meet at Dekaney High School where they earned a qualifying spot for the first regional meet. Tomball, along with the other schools around it and the Houston schools were recently moved to Area 8, which means that unlike in the past years of being in Area 10 and having a State meet at Texas A&M College Station, there are two regional meets for a spot at Nationals in Pensacola Florida.  The first meets location is still undecided but the second one will be held at LSU. This is the first time in four years that Tomball has advanced into the next phase of drill competitions.

“Our drill teams did good at our last drill meet. We were able to show off our hard work and it paid off as we advance to regionals. We’re going to continue and work hard and do the best we can and reflect well on the NJROTC program,” said junior Vivian Hernandez.

“NJROTC is a good place and a fun community for anyone looking for friends and stuff to do in their free time that’s not super expensive,” said sophomore Lillian Trahan. 

Drill meets consist of many different parts, there is inspection, which is how well cadets can hold a military bearing, know general military knowledge, general orders of the sentry, and how well their uniforms looks.

Armed, Unarmed and Color Guard regulation which is memorizing a card with 50+ commands and is graded by how the team executes the card. Armed and Unarmed exhibition, the team makes a routine of different movements and add flair to their marching to impress the judges and show off what they are capable of doing.

PT which is push-ups and sit-ups to a cadence or with a time limit and an 8×100 or 16×100 passing a baton back and forth around a track.

There is also an Academic test that has SAT math and reading, current events, and naval and military customs, history, and ranks on the test.

“Overall I think we did well, we could’ve done better but I’m proud of what we accomplished and the cadets who worked really hard to get where we’re at now,” said sophomore Abby Hernandez. 

“The drill meet went good even though we didn’t get the scores we wanted. We qualified that was the main goal and reflecting on the scores we have the only thing we can do is improve,” said Junior Jesus Bustamante. 

At the drill meet Tomball placed

2nd in the Academic test

2nd in the 16×100 relay

2rd in push-ups to cadence

3nd in sit-ups to cadence

4th in Armed Regulation

5th in Female Color Guard

6th in Unarmed Regulation

9th in inspection

11th in Male Mixed Color Guard

Overall PT Tomball placed 2nd place and the overall placement for the drill meet was 4th place.