Speech takes first at Worland

It was another successful weekend for the Bobcat Speech and Debate Team – one for the books as they brought home first place at the Worland “Worlando Beach” tournament.

The team not only secured first place in 1A/2A, but placed second overall behind 3A Riverton.

Every member of the Bobcat team broke into finals at the tournament, bringing home a total of 12 awards.

“This really was an incredible weekend for the team,” coach Cindy Glasson said. “In the 10 years I’ve been with this team, I cannot recall a time when every single kid broke into finals. Its unheard of.”

“This tournament was unprecedented,” coach Lyle Wiley added. “I have never heard of a team with 10+ competitors in a tournament, even, say a small tournament, break every single one of their students into finals. Amazing! Plus it is remarkable that we outscored all the 4A teams and were second only to Riverton in total sweeps.

“I think we’ss be going into culminating events, State and National Qualifiers, hot, with everyone performing at a high level. That makes us a scary team, not just for 1A/2A teams, for everyone.”

Kyle Mosser brought home fifth in drama and fourth in poetry while Aaron Hanson brought back seventh in POI and third in duet with his partner, Lane Randall.

Hannah Hu placed first in informative and fourth in oratory. Freshman Jean-luc Willson brought back third in extemp.

Ashley Brawley placed third in humor and sixth in duet with her partner, Kris Lahoe, and Katie Burrows placed sixth in humor as well at seventh in duet with her partner Reilly Russell.

Rounding out the awards were Breeze Petty and Tyler Kay with first place in duet.

“Our biggest competitor on the circuit is Greybull,” Glasson said, “and their coach and I have a tendency to poke fun at each other over who’s coming home with first every weekend. We both keep really close track of how the other team is doing during the weekend, counting points and breaks, but Saturday he said, ‘We were keeping up with you until you dropped in those four duet teams.’ That made me feel great, knowing another coach recognized our duet teams are killer.”

All four of the Bobcat duet teams were in the final round – more than half of the seven performers.

“Its amazing to see our kids dominating an entire event,” Glasson said.

This weekend the team will travel to Greybull for their tournament, the last regular season tournament before State and National Qualifiers.with first place in 1A-2A.