The second part of the Green River High School’s Speech and Debate season was kicked off with a first-place finish in Powell.
On Friday the team traveled to Powell to compete against 20 schools and around 300 students from Wyoming and Montana.
With 218 points, Green River was declared the sweepstakes overall tournament winner, while second place went to Skyview High School of Montana with 184 points. Green River also took second place in the individual events sweepstakes category and first in debate sweepstakes category.
Head coach Carina White said the team had not competed at the Powell tournament at Northwest College before.
“I attended Northwest College and debated for them and personally know the staff. They put on an excellent tournament,” White said. “We wanted to try it out so the kids could debate against some schools they haven’t seen before. It always helps them grow their craft.”
For White, it was like visiting her old stomping grounds.
“It was a bit nostalgic, my old college coach judged several of my students. It was cool to win the tournament and meant a lot,” she said. “I did share that with them although many of them already knew.”
With this tournament being the first one since the Christmas break, White knew it was going to be a challenge.
“They rallied well; we had some other challenges with limited practice because of the snow day, but they really pulled it out in the end,” she said. “It was an exciting and important win and will help lead us into this week as we compete against Cheyenne East this weekend at Kelly Walsh in Casper. This is the first time this season our varsity will have a chance to compete against them.”
White said the team did what they could coming off of the Christmas break and dealing with the snow day. They quickly learned to come together and help each other overcome obstacles.
“We have a lot of season ahead of us and we are always setting goals and looking for ways to improve,” White said.
Some students who stood out to White this week are Rebecca Shamer and Jesse Lauze who were undefeated in cross examination debate in the six preliminary rounds and took third place overall, Elaine Comer won poetry, Karlee Jo Rasmussen won Program Oral Interpretation and Atlin Johnson won Congress.
The team will travel to Casper this weekend for the Kelly Walsh Tournament. They will go up against one of the state’s toughest speech and debate teams -- Cheyenne East.
Powell Tournament Results
Humor: Dallin Hoyt, third place, Reina Kropf, fifth place, Phaedon Jones, sixth place, Will Allen and Raymond Garcia, semifinalists
Informative: Shelbi Jenkins, sixth place
Poetry: Elaine Comer, first place, Cassie Newcomb, fifth place, Karlee Cutler and Leslie Patterson, semifinalists
Policy debate: Jesse Lauze and Rebecca Shamer, third place and Alex Marchal and Patrick Marchal, quarter finalists
Cross examination debate: Jesse Lauze, second place and speaker award, Gregory Marchal, third place and speaker award and Patrick Marchal, fifth place and speaker award
Public forum debate: Leonna Grimes and Mike Montoya, third place, Matthew Pickering, fifth place speaker award, Halle Barenz and Cassie Newcomb quarter finalists, Matthew Pickering and Ramsey Taliaferro quarter finalists
Lincoln Douglas debate: Savrina Karimi, first place novice, Dallin Hoyt, third place varsity, Ashlynn Robbins, quarter finalists
Duet: Reina Kropf and Leslie Patterson, second place, Colt Parson and Sarah Kropf, fourth place
Drama: Karlee Cutler, fifth place
Program Oral Interpretation: Kassi Jo Rasmussen, first place, Leslie Patterson, fourth place
Congress: Atlin Johnson, first place
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