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Bobcat speech season wraps up at National Qualifiers

The Bobcat Speech and Debate team finished their season strong last weekend at the National Qualifying meet at Casper College.

Coach Cindy Glasson said the team’s finish fits perfectly with what usually happens – bad State Tournament, good National Qualifiers.

Although they didn’t have anyone qualify for Nationals in Birmingham, Ala. this summer, Tyler Kay and Katie Burrows did place fifth, making them the third runners-up for Nationals.

“Tyler (Kay) and Katie (Burrows) did an amazing job,” Glasson said. “They were the only freshman team in the final round, going up against a room full of seniors. For them to come out fifth means they beat two senior teams on Saturday. That is amazing.

“These two have worked very hard on their performance and honestly, I can’t wait to see what they do next year. They finished on fire.”

Being third runners-up means if two of the other teams, for whatever reason, cannot attend the National tournament, then the pair moves up accordingly.

There have been times, all over the state, when something comes up and a qualifier cannot go and the next person in line then gets to attend the National meet. It has happened previously with Bobcats, too.

The rest of the team was right on the cusp with Kay barely missing semi-finals with his humor piece, Aaron Hanson barely missing semis with both his drama piece and POI and Ashley Brawley just missing semis with her humor piece.

“This tournament runs a little differently than the others,” Glasson said. “At Nat Quals they do a ‘two and out’, meaning two rounds where you score below third place and you’re out of the competition.

“Tyler (Kay) didn’t get eliminated until the round before semis. The same thing happened with Aaron (Hanson) in both of his events and Ashley (Brawley), too. Its really disappointing for them to get right there and then be out.”

Brawley and her duet partner, Courtney Jeunehomme finished three rounds before being eliminated. Burrows, Reilly Russell and Hannah Hu were eliminated early in humor, drama and oratory.

The only debater on the team, Breeze Petty, barely missed breaking into octa-finals in LD debate. The field in debate is so large they must break into octa-finals and quarter-finals before reaching semis and finals.

“Breeze (Petty) has really had a great year,” Glasson said. “I hate to keep going back and referring to these kids as newbies or freshmen, but in this case, she’s really kept her head above water against some tough, upper classman competition.”

Glasson admits she was a little apprehensive at the beginning of the season with a team full of freshmen and a pair of sophomores that had never done speech before.

“I was,” she said. “I’ve always had upper classmen to help with the little things, and all of a sudden I had a team that absolutely was starting from scratch. They didn’t even know how to find their rooms the first meet out.

“Now, however, I have a team of seasoned veterans who are ready to take on the world. The growth I’ve seen in this team from the first day of practice to now has been wonderful to watch.

“I had a young lady join the team who was so quiet and shy she barely spoke to me the first day of practice. Now, she’s standing in front of complete strangers performing, yelling and creating a complete character. Its very cool to watch.”

 

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