HUNTINGTON BEACH : Girls’ Drill Team Earns Trip to Japan

The Huntington Beach High School girls’ drill team has wowed judges at competitions during the past six months, including an outing last week that has earned it a ticket to take the show overseas this summer.

The 43-member squad will perform today in the USA Nationals at Cypress College. It will be the team’s first appearance since winning the large drill team division title at last Saturday’s prestigious Miss Drill Team USA. That victory earned the division’s national championship and a berth, along with teams from 17 other high schools across the country, in the international finals to be held in August in Japan.

It marks the first invitation the school has ever received to the international competition. The 1984-85 team won the Miss Drill Team USA title but that was a year before the worldwide finals were instituted.

This year’s squad has placed first in the large military division of each of its six competitions during 1989-90. If the squad wins today and again at its final event next month, it will complete its first season without a loss since the championship squad of five years ago.

The key to this team’s success, said first-year coach Linda Stewart, has been the girls’ discipline. The girls practice as a full squad three hours per night, five nights a week, in addition to five extra hours’ minimum they are required to work in their smaller groups, she said.

Much of the squad’s time the next four months will be devoted to raising money for the Japan trip, which will cost $900 per person, she said. The team has held several fund-raisers already this year, and earlier this week Stewart formally requested a grant from the city. City officials have yet to respond to the request.