Mock Trial started the county competition strong this year, being the only team that remained undefeated for the first four rounds, yet ultimately placed second overall.

Tracy’s Mock Trial team tied with Venture Academy in the final round, and after the points were totaled, Tracy placed second, losing by only two points. The competition occurred on Feb. 16- 27 at the Stockton Courthouse. The other teams included West High School, McNair High School, and Venture Academy, as well as five other schools in the San Joaquin School District.

“After putting in so much work and effort, it is very dissatisfying to lose by such a dismal amount of points. I felt both grateful and annoyed. I was grateful that we placed pretty high, but, at the same time, I was annoyed that all my time was only granted second place,” senior Jessica Robison said.

“I definitely think that this year’s team was the best I’ve seen in the past few years in terms of talent. Regardless of the outcome, I think we performed to the best of our abilities and that’s something to be proud of,” senior Fat

Despite the team not meeting their goal for this season, wanting to place first at this competition, the members have learned a lot from this experience.

“I think that the students will have taken away the importance of having a passion for something and pursuing it diligently, as well as the importance of hard work and the pay-off that can and will come from it,” Justin Nunn, coach, said.

In order to meet this goal next year, the team is already focusing on improvements for the 2016-2017 mock trial season.

“Next year we need to work harder on learning the material to the best of our knowledge and improve on the little things that we may have messed up on this year, in order to truly deliver the perfect arguments and performances,” junior Alexandra Uskov said.

This year’s county competition did slightly vary from past competitions, although the outcome was similar to past year’s scoring as they placed second to Venture Academy for the past three years.

“The competition was very different this year because we actually had to go against Venture Academy twice, which never happens,” Robison said. “That definitely changed the dynamics and made the competition more interesting.”

In order to prepare for this competition, mock trial attended many scrimmages. During these scrimmages, the teams typically argue both sides of the case. The first team takes on the role of prosecution and the other team practices defense, and then they switch roles.

“The teams basically feed off of the other teams arguments and pick up on things that they are doing well or incorrect to make themselves do better,” Mohammadi said. “Overall, we practiced all year, attended tournaments, and scrimmaged at as many schools as we could to prepare for county.”

“To prepare for county, we started rehearsing in September. So, for months we’ve been going over each line and every word we are to say to make it perfect,” Robison said. “It’s an extremely time consuming project and takes up more time than practicing for a normal sport like swimming or soccer.”