Seventeen picked for Green River state team

With the regular season behind them, the Green River High School Speech and Debate team will set its sights on state.

This weekend, 17 students representing the GRHS Speech and Debate team will attend state at Lander High School.

"The coaches meet together to decide on who will compete at state. They look at how a student has done over the entire season. They look at how a student is doing now," assistant coach Jason Grubb said. "Are they at their best? Is there room to grow? Will they be competitive at state?"

The team is allowed to up to 20 entries at state, he said. Partner events, such as public-forum debate and duo interpretation are counted as one entry.

"It is done this way to equalize the competition between the large and small teams," Grubb said. "This format also encourages teams to only enter their top competitors."

Once again, the Green River coaches are anticipating Cheyenne East and Cheyenne Central to be the teams to beat.

"Both schools have an amazing group of students and are well coached," Grubb said. "A lot of the other schools have individual competitors that will challenge our students for individual championships."

Throughout the season, the team has traded first-place finishes with Cheyenne East, he said.

This week, the team will fine tune the areas it needs to and prepared both mentally and physically for the competition.

"Most of the preparation will be spent getting students into the right mindset. State is a long tournament," he said. "For the debaters, it will be the most rounds of competition they will do all season. The tournament runs over three days. It takes focus and endurance."

State team

Jesse Lauze-Reyes - Congressional debate and policy debate

Matthew Pickering - Congressional debate

Atlin Johnson - Congressional debate and policy debate

Patrick Marchal - Congressional debate and policy debate

Savrina Karimi - Congressional debate and public-forum debate

Gregory Marchal - Policy debate and extemporaneous speaking

Rebecca Shamer - Policy debate

Victoria Allen - Policy debate and oratory

Cassie Newcomb - Public-forum debate

Dallin Hoyt - Lincoln Douglas debate and humorous interpretation

Abigaile Grubb - Lincoln Douglas debate and informative speaking

Caeden Grubb - Lincoln Douglas debate

Rachel Heisinger - Lincoln Douglas debate

Lynzi Johnson - Program Oral Interpretation

Karlee Cutler - Duo interpretation

Sarah Kropf - Duo interpretation

Leona Grimes - Poetry