Mock trial team places second in county competition
Tracy High’s mock trial team poses after earning second place at county competition.
March 7, 2014
Tracy High School’s Mock Trial team earned second place at the county competition between Feb.18-22. During the award ceremony on Feb. 22, not only was Tracy High awarded for second-place, but, for the individual awards senior Hilarie Sit won first-place for the courtroom artist competition.
There are a total of nine high schools participated at the county competition. The students started practicing in October and continued through February.
“At the county competition, the kids were flawless,” Justin Nunn, mock trial coach, said. “They were absolutely amazing; however, we got second place.”
There are a total of 18 students in a true-to-life mock trial team, each team has about 9 prosecutors and nine students for defense debate. But, Tracy High had a total of 17 students on the team, the students had different roles; prosecution, defense, journalist, pre-trial, witnesses, and a courtroom artist.
“The experience was great,” Katie Low, defense prosecution/attorney said. “I have been in mock trial for the last four years so it was a very bittersweet competition because it was my last.”
The students prepared for this year’s competition by practicing their line of questioning with each other for countless hours.
“We scrimmaged some of the best teams in California and beat almost all of them,” Nunn said. “The team scrimmaged almost every weekend between October and February in preparation for the competition.”
The competition was three days long, round one on Feb. 18, round two on Feb. 20, and round three/four on Feb. 22. After the teams competed in rounds one and two, the teams to compete at the state competition were chosen and after the last round, the official team to compete at state is chosen. Unfortunately, Tracy High’s mock trial team will not be competing at the state competition. Tracy High School’s team was placed sixth in state last year. They beat Venture academy which has always been close competition for the school.
“All three years that I have been a mock trial coach, we’ve made it to finals,” Nunn said. “We lost my first year in 2012, we won last year in 2013, and we lost this year.”
