The Mock Trial team won two tournaments to open its 2021 season. 

Last weekend, two of the three teams, team 1300 and team 1299, attended an invitational tournament at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The 1300 team won third place against the University of Michigan. 

Freshmen Camille Floyd and Abigail Wagner received outstanding witness awards; seniors Jacob Hooper, Jean-Luc Belloncle, Stephen Edelblut, and freshman Njomeza Pema received outstanding attorney awards.

The 1298 team gained an 8-0 record as champions of the University of Iowa Cornhuskers Invitational tournament. Sophomore Caleb Sampson won an outstanding witness award, freshman Abby Davis received an outstanding attorney award, and sophomore Konrad Verbaarschott won an attorney award.

On Oct. 16 and 17, the 1299 team competed against Patrick Henry College, Tufts University, and Yale University to win second place at the Penn State tournament. The 1300 team won fourth place at a University of Michigan tournament after competing against Eastern Michigan University, Notre Dame University, and Penn State. Junior Johannah Freyenhagen won an outstanding attorney award. 

Tournaments are two days long, with four separate trials. The case remains the same throughout the year, but over the course of a weekend tournament each team is both the prosecution and defense. This season’s criminal case is suspected aggravated arson.

The success of Hillsdale’s Mock Trial team is impressive due to the size of the colleges the team competes against, according to Kirstin Kiledal, department chair of rhetoric and public address and director of forensics for the Mock Trial team. As an original founder of the Mock Trial team, Kiledal said she watched the team grow from one small team to three selective teams over the course of a decade. 

For junior and team captain Ethan Tong, the Mock Trial team has become a second family. 

“My best friends are in Mock Trial,” Tong said. “They are people who share the same values that I do and share the same competitive and academic drive. We are serious about being a family and caring for each other.”

Freshman Natalie LeBlanc said she transitioned from participating in debate in high school to mock trial at Hillsdale College. The team atmosphere pushed her out of her comfort zone and introduced her to a new family at Hillsdale, she said.

“I feel a lot more responsibility now because how I did affected other people, not just myself,” LeBlanc said. “Now that I feel that I’m part of this team, who are my family in a lot of ways, I really want to help them.” 

The team practices together each Monday and Wednesday evening. Toward the beginning of the season, it focuses on memorizing parts. As the season progresses, the team improves cross examinations, adds more persuasive elements, and refines arguments.

“For the next couple of tournaments, which we have coming in the next couple weeks, I hope we’ll be able to focus on just doing what we did last week but better,” senior and team captain Jean-Luc Belloncle said. 

Not only is the Mock Trial team working towards making their argument better, but being back in person to compete instead of through Zoom makes tournaments better as well, according to Tong and Belloncle. 

“It is far nicer to be able to travel to different states and different schools to compete against people instead of just doing it in Lane classrooms,” Belloncle said. “It’s also a far different experience just from a performance perspective because it’s very different talking to a camera or a screen, which is what we were doing last year, as opposed to actually being in a courtroom or a classroom this year and talking to people who are actually present in the room.”

The Mock Trial team has two tournaments left before beginning its road to the national tournament. According to Kiledal, the team has been half a point away from qualifying multiple times. However, she says the members handled the loss like true Hillsdale students.

“They have not fallen into the sense that it’s somebody else’s fault. They have their moment of disappointment and they grow from it,” Kiledal said. “Last year they were so close to Nationals, and this year they are working hard to get past that hurdle.”