Speech team first at Worland

The Bobcat Speech and Debate team came through with yet another first place win, their sixth for the season, at the Worlando Beach tournament last weekend.

The team worked their way through 20 teams to come out on top with eight competitors making the stage.

Senior Breeze Petty was a triple threat in Worland, making Super Congress as well as going 4-0 in LD debate to take third place, and placing sixth in impromptu speaking.

Senior Tyler Kay doubled up on the weekend, placing sixth in humor and fourth in poetry.

Another senior, Kyle Mosser placed third in impromptu and fifth in duet with his partner, Kris Lahoe.

Sophomore Lahoe also brought home sixth place in poetry.

Rounding out the tournament wins was senior Hannah Hu who placed fifth in original oratory.

“This was one of the tougher tournaments of the season,” coach Cindy Glasson said, “and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. This team has shown over and over they can compete, and win, against the best – even the 3A and 4A teams.”

The Bobcats left today (Thursday) for their State Tournament in Green River.

“Speech doesn’t have separate state tournaments for each of the classes,” Glasson said, “instead, we have to knock out 3A and 4A speakers as well as those in our own 1A/2A class in order to make finals.

“Coach (Lyle) Wiley and I encourage the team to just think of the state tournament like any other tournament and go out there and kill it. The stress of a state tournament and the sheer number of competitors can be intimidating.

“State is the only tournament where we see some schools. For instance, we don’t run into schools like Cheyenne East or Cheyenne Central at most of our tournaments during the regular season, so we really don’t know what their students have been doing all year.”

The State Tournament isn’t the last time the Bobcats will compete, either. Next Thursday they will travel to Rock Springs for the National Qualifying Tournament, a three-day event to determine who will be representing Wyoming at the National Tournament in Albuquerque, New Mexico in June.