Apple Valley Takes Illinois By Storm
Apple Valley speech competitors at their first day of competition.
The click of heels on a hard floor, professionalism projected in a every hallway, the nervous chatter and the itch to perform. All common sights, feelings, and sounds at a speech and debate tournament.
Getting back into the swing of things since the end of last season, Apple Valley’s speech and debate program took Illinois by storm at their first traveling tournament this past weekend. Glenbrooks is a tournament in Glenview, Illinois, where speech and debate competitors compete for a span of 2-3 days. There were 2200 competitors at the Speech and Debate Glenbrooks tournament. Apple Valley sent 13 speech competitors and seven debaters.
Three of the four speech captains attended Glenbrooks, and all three placed top-six in their individual events.
AV speakers competed in a variety of categories: Humorous Interpretation, Program Oral Interp, Duo Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation and Original Oratory. he AV debaters, meanwhile, competed in the categories of JV Lincoln Douglas, Varsity Lincoln Douglas and Varsity Public Forum
At 6:30 am, competitors are awake and ready to start the day. Teams arrive at their designated competition buildings and prepare for Preliminary Rounds which begin at 8:00 am for debate competitors and 8:30 am or 10:00 am for speech competitors.
“My favorite competition [day] is prelim day because we all feel so good about the performances and we don’t have to deal with the disappoint [of not breaking],” said speech competitor and captain Claire Doty.
By 6:30 pm, the first day is wrapped up for all competitors as they head back to their hotels to get a good night’s rest for Day Two of competition.
Day Two of competition began at 8:00 am with one final prelim round. Afterward, competitors anxiously awaited to see who made it to quarterfinals, the top 24 in each category. The top 12 in quarter finals advanced to semifinals. The final round consisted of the top six competitors in each category. By 4:50 pm teams gathered in the cafeteria to get ready for awards.
Apple Valley had 14 competitors break to a final round in 11 entries:
- Jane Michaelson got 2nd in Original Oratory.
- Rickey Williams got 3rd in Original Oratory.
- Claire Doty & Zakkiyah Sanders got 3rd Duo Interpretation.
- Arianna Rotty got 6th in Dramatic Interpretation.
- Jane Michaelson got 8th in Dramatic Interpretation.
- Nick Finken got 9th in Humorous Interpretation.
- Uzo Ngwu & Arianna Rotty got 10th in Duo Interpretation
- Zach Mundt & Nick Finken got 13th in Duo Interpretation.
- Ian Jarvey got 15th in Humorous Interpretation.
- Uzo Ngwu got 18th in Dramatic Interpretation.
- Claire Doty got 21st in Humorous Interpretation.
Apple Valley speech competitors with their awards.
“I had the goal since sophomore year to reach the final round at Glenbrooks, and I finally did it,” said senior Claire Doty.
Arianna Rotty, the sixth place Dramatic Interpretation finalist, said, “I am really proud of myself and the whole team because the amount of work we put in was a lot and definitely payed off in the end.”
Indeed, the amount of work did pay off as Apple Valley placed third in the team sweepstakes awards out of 261 teams from 37 different states.
Head coach Luke Ostrander says, “[Glenbrooks] is very competitive and there are a lot of strong schools from around the country. We really see how amazingly talented our students are. We were the highest placing team from Minnesota in this year’s tournament, so I couldn’t be happier with the results”
The Talon wishes the Speech team the best of luck for the rest of the long season!
