After surviving a winning spread in Semifinals that was a scant .05 over the competition, Blue Devils (1st-98.000) blew it open to .975 over the Cadets while earning the corps' 12th Drum Corps International Division I World Championship. Blue Devils took firsts in General Effect Music, Visual Ensemble and all Music captions (Brass, Ensemble and Percussion). Second place in GE Visual was only .1 under the Cadets and second place in Visual Performance was only .2 under the Cavaliers. (Being that only the GE scores are added to the overall total without first being divided in two, the Visual Performance deficit only accounted for .1 of the overall score.) A .4 deficit to the Cavaliers in Color Guard also was not enough to bring down the corps' overall spread. The difference in Finals over the Cadets primarily came in those music captions that Devils swept. The corps enjoyed a .625 spread in Overall Music and a .35 spread in Overall Visual, which accounted for the .975 overall spread. The two corps tied in Overall GE. The Cadets (2nd-97.025) took first in GE Visual, second in GE Music, Visual Ensemble and Music Brass, third in Visual Performance and Music Ensemble and fourth in Color Guard and Percussion. Despite being fourth in Color Guard, .6 down to the first place guard, that deficit was to the Cavaliers, not Blue Devils. The guard was only .2 under Blue Devils' third place guard. The major reason for the corps' placement was those music captions mentioned in the paragraph above. The Cavaliers (3rd-96.350) took first in Visual Performance and Color Guard, but were third in Visual Ensemble, .6 under Blue Devils and .2 under the Cadets. Third place in both GE captions accounted for .5 of the overall deficit to Blue Devils, but it was the music captions that mostly kept the corps in third. Brass was sixth, .5 under Devils, Music Ensemble was fifth, .8 under Devils, and Percussion was sixth, 1.0 under Devils, for a 1.15 overall shortfall to Blue Devils in Overall Music. The .5 deficit to Blue Devils in Overall GE accounted for most of the rest of the shortfall. Phantom Regiment (4th-94.350) enjoyed a spread over the next three corps on the basis of high music scores, second in Music Ensemble and Percussion and third in Brass. An Overall Visual placement of sixth occurred due to fourth place in Visual Ensemble, sixth in Color Guard and seventh in Visual Performance. Fifth in GE Visual and sixth in GE Music further helped keep the corps from moving ahead, but also kept Phantom above the close pile of three corps stacked just underneath. Only .125 separated 5th place from 7th. Santa Clara Vanguard (5th-94.175) stayed ahead of Carolina Crown (6th-94.150) and Bluecoats (7th-94.050) largely on the basis of placing fourth in GE Visual, .4 above Crown and .7 above Bluecoats. Vanguard took fifth all three visual captions (Performance, Ensemble and Color Guard) and Brass, sixth in Music Ensemble and seventh in GE Music and Percussion. Carolina Crown took second in Color Guard, fourth in Visual Performance and fifth in GE Music and Percussion. Sixth place in GE Visual and Visual Ensemble and seventh in Brass and Music Ensemble kept the corps from moving ahead of Santa Clara Vanguard. Bluecoats' score of 94.150 makes the corps the highest scoring 7th place unit in the 35-year history of DCI, supplanting Madison Scouts' 93.60 score from 1989. Music was the corps' forte, as Percussion placed third, (only .3 under BD) and Ensemble and Brass took fourth, as well as did GE Music. (Overall Music was third.) The corps was .7 down to Santa Clara Vanguard and .3 down to Carolina Crown in GE Music. Sixth in Visual Performance and seventh in Visual Ensemble and Color Guard sealed seventh place for the corps by a small margin. Blue Knights (8th-90.275) took eighth in both GE captions, Visual Ensemble, Color Guard and Brass and ninth in Visual Performance, Music Ensemble and Percussion. Boston Crusaders (9th-89.100) were eighth in Visual Performance, Music Ensemble and Percussion and ninth in all other captions. Colts (10th-86.150) were 10th in both GE captions and Music Ensemble, 11th in Visual Performance, Color Guard and Brass and 12th in Visual Ensemble and Percussion. Glassmen (11th-85.750) took 10th in Color Guard, Brass and Percussion, 11th in both GE captions, Visual Ensemble and Music Ensemble and 12th in Visual Performance. Spirit from JSU (12th-84.500) placed 10th in Visual Performance and Visual Ensemble, 11th in Percussion and 12th in all other captions.