The Green River High School Speech and Debate team traveled again this past weekend and came home with another first-place finish.
“Overall the team did an excellent job. A lot of our first year students who have recently become varsity competitors are discovering how competitive varsity competition can be,” assistant coach Jason Grubb said.
“They are learning lots and we know we will see some of them on stage before the end of the year,” he said.
Eight schools and a total of 151 students attended the Evanston Red Devil Speech and Debate Tournament this past weekend. Twelve events were available for the students to compete is and Grubb said GRHS entered 54 students. GRHS took first place and Cheyenne South claimed second place.
“The competition was stiff, especially in individual events. Riverton is having an amazing year. The have an extremely talented squad and took a lot of the top finishing spots in the speaking events,” Grubb said.
“We continue to show dominance in the debate events finishing in the top four spots in policy debate, top three in Lincoln Douglas debate, top two and three spots in public forum debate and top one, two, three, four and six spots in Congressional debate.”
Evanston’s tournament is unique because it is smaller than most of the tournaments the team travels to.
“Most tournaments we attend are a little bigger, but Evanston is always fun for the students and allows us to enter as many students as we want so everyone has an opportunity to compete,” Grubb said.
This weekend, four of the teams policy and debate teams tied for first. For Grubb, three first-year debaters stood out to him: Madi Young, Alex Erdmann and Sam Quick. In Lincoln Douglas debate, Caeden Grubb, also a first-year debater, finished 6-0 and tied for first at his first varsity tournament with teammate Chase Kontz, who also finished 6-0.
The informative speaking squad also impressed Grubb this week.
“Last week, at the Kelly Walsh tournament in Casper, we had five informative speaking competitors make it to semifinals and only one made it to finals,” Grubb said. “We practiced a lot before Evanston and it paid off. We had four informative speakers make it to the final round of competition finishing in the top one, two, three and six spots.”
Another area of improvement for the team, was in dramatic interpretation.
Grubb said Kiyona Howard finished sixth this weekend and it was nice to see someone from GRHS make it into the final drama round.
This area hasn’t been a strength for the team in the past.
Every team has areas they need to work on, and Green River is no different.
“We didn’t have any students in the final rounds for oratory or extemporaneous speaking. We will look at what is happening in those areas and see what we can do to improve,” Grubb said.
“We’d also like to see a few more students in the final round of humorous interpretation. This area has always been a strength. We have a young squad, but they are talented.”
This weekend, the team will travel to Cheyenne to complete in the Cheyenne South Speech and Debate Tournament. So far, it looks like 14 teams will compete at the tournament, including Cheyenne East, Cheyenne Central and two successful teams from Colorado.
Grubb is hoping the team’s strengths and their ability to improve the areas that need attention will help them this weekend.
“We are strong in debate. We are strong in mentoring. We have lots of upperclassman helping our new team members. We are strong in depth meaning we have lots of students in each event,” Grubb said.
“This makes it easier to compete in those events because it allows for someone to have a bad tournament and we can still win the event because someone else has a good tournament. No one student is carrying the team to these team first place finishes.”
Evanston Results
Duet: Elijah Kropf and Eli Thomas, sixth place and Krista Boynton Hannah Thomas, seventh place
Program Oral Interpretation: Sarah Kropf, third place, Elaine Comer, fifth place
Drama: Kiyona Howard, sixth place
Informative: Leona Grimes, first place, Robyn Jauregui, second place, Abbie Grubb, third place, Samantha Harden, sixth place, Mikki Scott and Shaleena Mahana semifinalists
Poetry: Leona Grimes, second place, Elaine Comer, fourth place, Olivia Nielsen, semifinalist
Extemporaneous: Chase Kontz, Spencer Travis, Kassie Bohlmann and Levi Hren semifinalists
Impromptu: Rebecca Shamer, first place, Victoria Allen, second place, Robyn Jauregui, fourth place, Shelbee McFadden, sixth place, Sam Quick and Caeden Grubb, semifinalists
Oratory: Sarah Kropf, semifinalists
Humor: Jaron Shereda, sixth place, Raymond Garcia and Will Allen, semifinalists
Congress: Atlin Johnson, first place, Savrina Karimi, second place, Matthew Pickering, third place, Jesse Lauze, fourth place, Rachel Heisinger, sixth place
Lincoln Douglas debate: Chase Kontz and Caeden Grubb, first-place tie, Mikki Scott, third place, Rachel Heisinger, quarter finalist
Cross examination debate: Four-way tie for first: Rebecca Shamer and Maddie Young, Levi Hren and Sam Quick, Atlin Johnson and Jesse Lauze, Victoria Allen and Alex Erdmann
Public forum debate: Cassie Newcomb Ramsey Tailiferro, second place, Matthew Pickering Savrina Karimi, third place
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