They did it before and they did it again (well not once, actually but consistently; too many times to count). This year the WS Forensics team has continued its tradition of sending students to states and placing high overall as a team and as individuals.
Two weeks prior to states, the team competed at the regional competitions and proved that they’d be a force to reckon with, with not only two first place finishes by junior Grayce Angle in Original Oratory and senior Diana Schulberg in Prose Pieces, but also a runner up finish by junior Lydia Heaton in Prose.
The weeks leading up to the state competition were spent practicing every day after school for half hour to an hour and doing quite a bit of other prep work involving lots of memorization of notecards and much rehearsing.
“I practiced with my mom a lot of times, edited a few things here and there, and cut some things out to cut time down,” said Heaton.
Along with the assistance of Marie Bakke, the current Forensics coach, the team enlisted the help of Madeleine Deliee, who was the Forensics coach for the past five years or so. With this additional help Angle was able to make a clean sweep in her post season.
“I came in not expecting much after taking such a long time off, I was kind of the new girl walking into everything since I didn’t really know who to look out for,” said Angle.
This didn’t stop her however, as Angle became the new 6A State Champion in Original Oratory, while her Forensics counterparts Heaton and Schulberg finished 3rd and 4th in Prose.
“I’m happy with how well we did, but at the same time the new 6 division format of competition sort of devalued the experience, considering there’s about 6 state champions technically now,” said Angle.
The VHSL recently changed its entire organization. Where as it used to be divided by A, AA and AAA, this year it was split into 6 different divisions.
“We’re not competing against the best of the best now, with the new state format the competition seems more watered down,” said Heaton.
Despite this, Heaton will have a chance to compete against the top speakers in the nation as she has qualified to head on to the Washington Arlington Catholic Forensic League nationals.
“I’m excited to perform against such a wide variety of people, the WACLF competition will be tougher than in the VHSL and there will be different standards of judging so it’ll be a really great new experience,” said Heaton.