Speechsters first in Cody

Bobcat speech and debate had a stellar weekend at the Cody Invitational last week, bringing home their second first place win of the season.

The Cats showed their strength, not only taking first in 1A/2A, but scoring higher than the 4A teams, coming in second overall to Worland by less than 10 points.

Senior Breeze Petty brought home second in Congress as well as a fourth place in Impromptu for the weekend.

Sophomore Jean-Luc Willson placed fourth in Extemp, followed by Brooklyn Brown, placing fifth and Jacob Randall in sixth place.

Randall and his partner Josiah Butler placed fourth in PF debate while Tyler Kay took home a third place win in LD debate.

Impromptu speaking saw a number of Bobcats on the list with Brown and Kyle Mosser making it to semi-finals. Petty took fourth place with Kay placing first.

Kris Lahoe made her first individual break this year, moving into semi-finals in Poetry. Kay placed first in Poetry as well.

Humor was dominated by the Cats, too, with Kay placing fifth, Aime Robinson taking second, and Mosser walking away with first place.

The duet team of Mosser and Lahoe also placed third for the weekend.

“This was an exceptional weekend,” coach Cindy Glasson said, “especially for our seniors. We saw a couple of teams we hadn’t competed against yet this year and they all came through with flying colors.

“At this point, I think there are some competitors out there who are sitting up and realizing we’re going to be the team to beat this year. We have so much talent in our senior class and the underclassmen are tight on their heels, bringing home awards already, so that’s a great sign for the future of the team.”

Glasson said she and co-coach Lyle Wiley spent the rest of their weekend going over ballots from the tournament to see what the judges had to say about the various performances.

“Fortunately, we have a couple of weekends off to do a little tweaking of their pieces before our next tournament,” Glasson said. “The comments on the ballots allow us, as coaches, to maybe see things with their pieces that we hadn’t noticed before since we see them every day. Everything was very positive from the judges.”

The team will take the next two weekends off before hitting the road six weekends in a row until the season is over. Their next competition will be in Jackson, Feb. 14 and 15, followed by Greybull the next weekend.