The Green River High School Speech and Debate Team came home with a second-place finish from this weekend’s competition.
Out of a total of 14 schools, Cheyenne East came out on top with a total of 103 points, Green River grabbed second with 93 points, while Cheyenne South took third with 22 points.
“The students don’t want to lose again to East and today’s team meeting will be about setting goals for our upcoming tournament at Kelly Walsh,” head coach Carina Stulken said Monday. “More than 30 teams will be in attendance including East. It is time to outwork them; we have the talent on this team to do that. East is going to be tough this year; and it is going to be a battle each weekend. The first year we won state we took turns winning tournaments all season; and I have a feeling it is going to be like that again this season. Our kids want to come out on top and they will have to work hard to achieve that.”
Stulken said there were a couple of contributing factors to the second-place finish. First, the long holiday break and second Cheyenne Central did not host a cross examination debate category, an event the GRHS team has a lot of strength in. During the long break, the team didn’t meet for practices, leaving individual students to prepare over the break.
“We have been practicing since October, but this is the first tournament our entire team has competed at together this season; and we are building our momentum,” Stulken said.
“We have a lot to work on this weekend,” Stulken said. “We want to win Kelly Walsh.”
“It is a jumping off point for the season and we want to continue to improve and grow stronger. We were snowed out of Cheyenne East right before Christmas and debaters didn’t compete at Rock Springs so we need to come together as a team if we want to have a winning season; and I completely believe that will happen,” Stulken said.
Stulken said she and the other coaches Dan Parson, RaNae Johnson and Jason Grubb and know what a talented group of kids they have on the team and they know they will be successful.
This weekend, half of the team will travel to Casper to compete in the Kelly Walsh Tournament.
Cheyenne Central results
Drama semifinalist: Elaine Comer
Programmed Oral Interpretation: fourth place: Hayley Lauze
Informative: fifth place: Abigail Grubb
Humor: first place: Dallin Hoyt, second place: Emma Nathan, third place: Morgan Burbank, fourth place: Phaedon Jones, semifinalists: Raymond Garcia, Colt Parson and Shelbi Jenkins
Oratory: fourth place: Kayla Gibson and semifinalist: Victoria Allen
Poetry: third place: Elaine Comer, fifth place: Leslie Patterson, semifinalists: Rachel Heisinger Karlee Cutler and Megan Golightly
Extemporaneous: second place: Gregory Marchal, fifth place: Mike Montoya, semifinalist: Levi Hren
Duet: second-place tie: Leslie Patterson and Reina Kropf, fifth place: Morgan Burbank and Sarah Kropf semifinalists: Karlee Cutler and Lynzi Johnson, Katy Robinson and Raymond Garcia and Natalie Heiner and Megan Golightly
Congressional Debate: second place: Jesse Lauze, fourth place: Atlin Johnson, fifth place: Patrick Marchal, semifinalists: Katy Robinson, Tristan Gilmore, Kolbi Schanzebach, Kyle Thomas and Matthew Pickering
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