The Hillsdale Mock Trial teams had a tournament for the record books this past weekend, with one of two Hillsdale teams finishing first out of 28 teams at the Ohio Northern University Polar Bear Invitational Mock Trial Tournament. In addition to the first-place finish, Hillsdale’s second team was able to pull in a fifth-place finish.
The fashion in which the Hillsdale team grabbed first place is perhaps more impressive than the feat itself.
A Mock Trial tournament consists of four rounds, with two judges each. Each team spends two rounds as the plaintiff and two as the defense. At the end of each round, each judge determines the winner of the round, making a total of eight points possible in a tournament. Throughout the weekend, the more ballots you have received, the tougher the opponent you will face.
The team that took first this weekend was able to take all eight ballots for the first time in school history.
“We got all of the ballots this weekend, and that rarely happens,” sophomore team member John Church said. “A lot of times the winning team wins 6-2 or 7-1, so to us this was a big deal. Having the other team finish at 5-3 and take fifth was fantastic as well.”
In addition to the outstanding overall performance of the teams, Hillsdale was able to win four outstanding attorney awards and two outstanding witness awards.
“Collectively we won a fourth of the individual awards, and a third of our team won an individual award. I would say that is pretty impressive for a small school,” sophomore Jennifer Matthes, captain of the team finishing fifth on the weekend, said.
Just because the team comes from a small school does not mean that their success came as a surprise to them.
“I thought it was completely within the realm of possibility for us to win,” senior Jack Shannon said. “At our last tournament we missed first place by one point on one ballot. We were able to split with Harvard, and placed above multiple other Ivy League schools. So going in, I knew we had a chance.”
As the weekend wore on, the team began to understand the opportunity they had.
“Our first day we went against teams that were good. We faced Kenyon College and Michigan State’s A team,” Church said. “On the second day we faced University of Michigan’s A team first, and they were fourth place in nationals last year. We saw that as the real big hurdle for the weekend. Once we beat them, making us 6-0, we started to strive for making school history.”
Both teams have now finished their invitational seasons, and will now set their eyes on regionals and attempting to gain a place at the national competition in Cincinnati, Ohio.
