The Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps arrived in Houston on Oct 29 with high expectations for its competitive drill meet.

And Tuesday, after their annual inspection, the cadets learned they qualified to compete at the state level at Texas A&M University in February.

For week, the team practiced and studied long and hard to prepare for this moment. The teams practiced three times a week, prepared their uniforms and tested themselves on their knowledge.

“Kinda like test questions,’’ Commander Vincent Quidachay said. “Except on this test it’s an oral test, and you’ve got one guy that’s been in the military for seven to eight years screaming at you wanting to know why you don’t know the answer. That’s the big difference.”

The teams competed in arm drill, which consists of guys with rifles. There’s also unarmed drill, which consists of girls who learned a stomping routine they came up with themselves.

The girls on unarmed hoped to accomplish many thing,s and they looked to take many lessons from competing.

“I really hope that we qualify for the state competition at this drill meet and the team members learn how to focus on one small goal that leads to a bigger goal as well as manage their stress in a productive manner,” said Alyssa Thomas, a member of the unarmed drill team.

said also had a physical fitness team, academic test and color guard.

“They all do it to a certain order,” Quidachay said.”We get graded against 26-40 other schools, and if you take top two in local or state drill meets, they can qualify for state championship. That’s what we’re trying to do in Houston.”

The teams take a lot out of competing and they learn the importance of teamwork. The score is always based off of the weakest person on the team. If there are one or two very strong cadets and the rest are not prepared, they don’t win. A lot of people think teamwork is all about how they can contribute,  but TEAM actually stands for “together everyone achieves more.”

“You’ll see a lot of people helping each other out and that’s where you get teamwork,”  Quidachay said.