Mock Trial team poses with trophy for fourth place in Nationals. Courtesy | Caleb Sampson
Last weekend, the Hillsdale College Mock Trial team won fourth place overall at the National Collegiate Tournament in Memphis, Tennessee.
With a record of 9-3, team 1076 placed second in their division and were tied for the highest combined strength score at the tournament. Team 1077 finished with a record of 4-8.
“In two years, Hillsdale Mock Trial went from never qualifying for nationals to placing second in the division and fourth in the nation,” junior Caleb Sampson said. “We couldn’t be more proud or grateful.”
The teams had four weeks to draft, finalize, and memorize their case materials for nationals. Team 1076 captain junior Justin Lee said competitors spent more than 30 hours a week in practices and meetings to prepare for the tournament.
“Preparing for an entirely new case in one month was a huge challenge,” Sampson said. “But working toward a common goal with my best friends made that challenge well worth it.”
The teams drove to Memphis last Wednesday afternoon, spending the 10 hour bus drive memorizing their material. On Thursday, both teams participated in two scrimmages to help run their cases against other teams, Lee said.
“Our scrimmages were against really high quality competitors which helped us get focused for the weekend,” Lee said.
With the tournament beginning Friday evening, Lee said the teams spent every moment of free time practicing. On Friday night, team 1076 was paired against University of California Los Angeles, who won the tournament, for its first round.
“It was such a competitive round,” Lee said. “It felt like we belonged in that round; we felt like we were in it. But it was a good wake up call to make us realize just how difficult this weekend was going to be.”
Team 1076 won its next two rounds, winning all three ballots in every round. Coach Jonathan Church said competing against the University of Florida’s A team in round 3, was a complete rematch from the year before, which showed Hillsdale’s improvement over the past year.
“We showed rookie nerves against Florida last year, and we tried some strategies that just weren’t smart,” Church said. “So this year, watching the round, the rookie mistakes were gone. The nerves were gone. We ran a clean round where we forced them into errors instead of the other way around.”
After the preliminary four rounds, the tournament hosts announced the results of the tournament and sent the top two teams into the final round where they compete for the championship.
Lee said he was going to pack up his belongings and noticed their coach organizing all of their materials. At this moment, Lee said he knew team 1076 was in the running for the championship round.
“I go up to coach and he’s organizing the trial materials,” Lee said. “I told him that we could just dump it all in there and he said, ‘No, Justin, we need to organize it now.’ I knew that we might be going again and that was crazy.”
The tournament hosts announced the individual awards and named the top 10 teams from each division. Lee said as the announcer went through the list, the nerves and fear were continuing to rise.
“We’re not number 10, not nine, not eight, and it just kept going,” Lee said. “By the time we got to third place, I knew we were second because UCLA had yet to be mentioned, and though we competed well against them, I knew they had beaten us.”
After the ceremony, Lee said the team was absolutely exhausted, so they ordered takeout and celebrated by watching the final round live stream.
“The UCLA team was so kind; I know almost all of them by first name,” Lee said. “It felt like we were cheering on and supporting our friends. Watching them compete and execute such incredible mock trial was very fun.”
Church attributed the team’s success to a mixture of the competitors’ focus, camaraderie, and dedication. Church said the team used to have a culture of telling horror stories from past tournaments and mistakes, which led underclassmen to have fear of different schools and the quality of competition.
“Last year I told the captains that we were done sharing these stories and I had to get on people who would share these stories all the time,” Church said. “Now, our freshmen don’t even know to be nervous, they just know that they’re a part of a good program.”
Church said having this many team members, especially freshmen and sophomores, watching and competing at the NCT will help prepare them and give them the hunger to continue working toward qualifying each year.
“My view in sports or competition of any kind is that you’re not entitled to anything,” Church said. “We’re going to have to make sure that we stay true to our virtues that have gotten us this far. If we work hard, we’ll get what we deserve.”
As the mock trial season came to a close this last weekend, Sampson said the team’s success and competitive spirit only makes them want to work harder to return and do better next year.
“One judge ranked us above UCLA at this year’s national champions,” Sampson said. “This year we took silver. Next year, we’re coming back for gold.”
