Panther Valley High School’s JROTC won every category in a drill team competition held Thursday.

The event was held in the Panther Valley High School gym. Participating besides the Panthers were teams from Pine Grove, Shikellamy and Wilson of West Lawn.

Panther Valley accumulated a total of 919 points. Behind them were Shikellamy with 842, Pine Grove with 807 and Wilson with 667.

Maj. Gerald New, senior Army instructor, said the event had three parts. They are unarmed, armed and color guard.

Unarmed consists of marching routines. In this event, Panther Valley scored 304 points; Shikellamy, 287; Wilson, 276; and Pine Grove, 265.

JROTC Lt. Col. Hailey Duncan, a Panther Valley junior who is in her second year of competing, said she was happy with the score in this event.

“My group and I work very hard, practicing twice a week,” she said. “I think we’re very good at it.”

Cadet Hailey Harvilla was drill commander for the unarmed event.

New said the unarmed competition consists of 47 distinct movements. The team is judged on cadence, ability to give commands and executing the commands.

The armed competition involved using air rifles to shoot at a target.

Scoring for this was Panther Valley, 308; Shikellamy, 289; Pine Grove, 288; and Wilson, 166.

The Panthers Alexis Cooper finished an individual second with a score of 193.

Color guard units are judged on their ability to present colors in a marching formation, New said.

Panther Valley took first place in this part of the competition easily with 307 points, followed by Shikellamy with 266, Pine Grove with 254 and Wilson with 225.

The Panthers’ color guard consisted of Hailey Harvilla, JROTC color guard commander Noah Hess, Cole McArdle and Aranne Moser.

New said this was the third competition this year for the Panther Valley JROTC. In the first two, held at Pine Grove and Shikellamy, the Panthers finished second overall.

It is the only one for the year hosted by Panther Valley.

“This is a student-led group,” New said. “They put a lot of work into it. It’s great to see them improving every time.”

“It’s nice to see how they compete against other cadets,” he said.

The Panthers will have a meet in January at Wilson.

On Jan. 25, a league competition will be held at Red Land High School in Lewisberry, York County.

Duncan said after the competition, “We have never gotten first place (this school year) in everything. I am really pleased.”

She said she is planning to join the Air Force after graduating high school.

She praised the JROTC and said, “If it wasn’t for this program, I probably wouldn’t be interested in getting into the military. This program shaped me into the person I am now.”