Backstage at New York’s Lincoln Center last Saturday night, the UGA Accidentals waited anxiously for their turn to compete in this year’s International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. 

After taking third, they got texts from friends, family and, surprisingly, other acappella teams that were their enemies through the season. 

“It’s been amazing — the amount of support we’ve gotten this year from other teams throughout the South,” said Tyler Reed, a junior from Lawrenceville, who has been with the Accidentals since his freshman year. “People we had beat in previous rounds of the competition kept sending us stuff all throughout the weekend, like ‘go get ’em’ or ‘beat SoCal for us, you guys deserve this.’” 

Going into the weekend, even Shane Fuhrman, a graduate student who doubles as the group’s director, knew that a win at finals would be tough. 

“You see, at this point everybody is really, really good, so it’s not always a matter of singing talent,” Fuhrman said. “You really have to be great — not good — at everything and let all of your singers’ talent shine through.”

After winning at the quarterfinals in February and the semifinals in March, the Accidentals advanced to the finals, where they represented the South against five other groups from other regions of the country.

The Accidentals chose to treat their weekend in New York as both a competition and a vacation, touring the city and, of course, singing while they toured.

Come Saturday, though, the mood was entirely different as the sudden reality of the night’s competition hit. 

Hours before the show, the Accidentals gathered backstage to talk about the year and the impact it had on each group member.

“There were tears, there was laughter and goofing off — I mean, it was just sort of our time to take in what we had accomplished and how far we had come this year,” Reed said. “Afterwards, though, we left from there with a newfound determination, not just to win, but to put on a performance that was better than anything we had done before.”

At the end of the night, the Accidentals walked away with second runner-up, beat only by USC’s SoCal VoCals and Berklee’s Pitch Slapped.

Despite losing overall, coming out of the Lincoln Center on Saturday night, Langdon Quin left with the award for best soloist for his performance in “Come Together,” and Schafer Gray for best vocal percussionist, making the Accidentals the winningest group of the night.  

Reflecting back on the weekend, Reed said he was convinced that their performance that night was the best in the 36-year history of the Accidentals.”

Even now, after a long year has officially come to a close for the Accidentals, they are already performing again tonight at UGAPALOOZA, alongside the other two University acappella groups, With Someone Else’s Money and Noteworthy. They will be performing songs from the competition as well as new songs.

The end of this school year presents a bittersweet situation for the Accidentals, as five seniors are graduating in May.

To fill these places, though, the Accidentals are having auditions tomorrow, starting at 5 p.m. in room 304 of the School of Music. 

“Usually we have two or three leave, but never five, and these are some pretty big shoes to fill,” Reed said.