norman
country-financial
March 29, 2024 3:51 am
Your hometown Newspaper since 1987.
Search
Close this search box.

6th Straight State Win For MVHS Debate

The MVHS Forensics Team celebrates its sixth straight state championship victory after the state competition held at Virgin Valley High School on Saturday.

By Kenna McMurray

Moapa Valley Progress

The Moapa Valley debate team erupted from their seats in a shower of jubilant screams, shouts, and celebration as the State Champion title was awarded to them for the sixth year in a row late Saturday night at Virgin Valley High School in Mesquite. This year’s title was a hard-fought battle.

The State competition allows each school to only bring their two top competitors in each event. Because speakers and debaters compete head to head in matches regardless of school size, this format pits the smaller talent pool of Moapa Valley against the top two competitors from the giant schools that have forensics programs well over a hundred students strong.

This format began causing problems for Moapa Valley early on. After three preliminary rounds of individual events, speakers advancing to the finals round were posted and Moapa team members were shocked to learn that out of their whole team, they were only able to advance two speakers to finals.

They were, however, thrilled that John Rockenbach advanced to finals in Expository Speaking and Tucker Abbott advanced in Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking.

Things began looking up a little when debate quarter-finals were posted. Moapa had managed to advance the Public Forum team of juniors John Rockenbach and Ricky Glaubitz and sophomore Lincoln-Douglas debater Kenna McMurray to the quarter-finals round.

When Rockenbach and Glaubitz did not advance to semi-finals, the team began to worry again. But McMurray won her quarter- final round and her semi-final round to advance to finals in LD debate, bringing the team some much needed sweepstakes points.

When final awards were announced, individual awards were given to John Rockenbach and Ricky Glaubitz for a 5th place finish in Public Forum, with Rockenbach also taking 5th in the state for Expository Speaking. Tucker Abbott also was able to collect a trophy for his 6th place finish in Foreign Extemp. McMurray placed second overall in Lincoln-Douglas debate.

All of this team performance proved enough to put Moapa over the top in a tight race to reign triumphant as state champions in the small school division for their 6th year in a row.

As Moapa accepted the state trophy, the joy was overwhelming.

“It feels good to go against such high quality competition and be this dominant,” said Debate Coach Jared Bushman.

“Our team worked really hard this year for State and I was really impressed with our performance,” said team captain Calvin McMurray. “It gave me quite a scare there for a while, but we pulled out ahead which made it worth all the work. I feel honored to have been a part of a State Champion team my entire high school career. We couldn’t have done it without every single person on our team.”

In two weeks, on March 31-April 2, national qualifiers will take place with qualifiers for Congress being held on March 25. The team is thrilled to finish another year and is very proud of their undefeated record.

Print This Article:

Share This Article:

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Screen Shot 2023-02-05 at 10.55.46 PM
2-21-2024-fullpagefair
4 Youth Service WEB
2-28-2024 WEB Hole Foods St Patricks
No data was found
2023 WEB BANNER 2 DEFAULT AD whitneyswater
Mesquite Works Web Ad 10-2020
Scroll to Top
Receive the latest news

Subscribe To Our Weekly Newsletter

Get notified about new articles