Jan. 20-22 proved to be an exciting weekend for the Northwest College forensics team. They placed second in overall sweepstakes, third in individual events sweepstakes and second in debate sweepstakes in Billings, Mont.
In the open division of debate, Pat Anderson and Cecil Moon advanced to the octofinal round, but were defeated by a team from Carroll College. Jared Bressler and Brett Delaney advanced to the quarter final round, but lost to a team from Carroll College as well. Chelsea Hampton and her debate partner Sara Holweger made it into the quarter final round in the junior division, but they were beaten by a team from Black Hills State. Carroll College also defeated Breanna Joslin Stepp and Karl Borneman who advanced to the quarterfinals of the junior division.
Grant Langdon, Moon, and Delaney received ninth place, fourth place and third place respectively for speaker awards.
In the individual events, Delaney brought home a first place in after-dinner speaking. He and Langdon also placed first in duet interpretation. Delaney commented, “Well, we just recently switched our piece and were finally able to beat out a team with the same piece as our old one.”
Bressler, a freshman, was awarded sixth place in impromptu speaking and fifth place in extemporaneous speaking. In dramatic interpretation, Langdon placed fourth and Bryce Cornatzer, competing in his first tournament, placed second. Delaney, Matt Sharp and Megan Reed also broke into the dramatic interpretation semifinals placing them in the top 12 at the tournament. Langdon broke to semifinals into the prose category while Hampton brought home a fifth-place finish in the event. Kaja Lamb placed sixth in informative speaking whereas Michael Coats placed fourth.
“We had an outstanding showing,” commented Duane Fish, coach of the team. “It was very nice that some people that hadn’t had success prior to this tournament were able to place. It’s really about breaking out and improving.”
Some members of the team also had the opportunity to compete in an experimental event called reasoned response. The students were given a topic, situation and audience, and had only a half-hour to prepare a speech. In this trial event, Coats placed seventh and Reed placed sixth. Commenting on the success at the Rimrock tournament, Coach Jennie Hunt said, “The potential has always been there. Something just clicked at this tournament.”