Hillsdale College Mock Trial team B placed sixth in the Indiana Hoosier Hoedown Invitational on Jan. 27-28 at Indiana State University.
The tournament was a useful opportunity to build team cohesion before regionals, according to sophomore and team B captain Ashley Poole. bo
“This is a new team, everyone’s just been put together,” Poole said. “We got to see how everyone works together and hear our content for the first time out loud against really reputable programs.”
Team B won five and a half ballots out of eight, finishing in sixth place and winning an honorable mention, according to Poole. The team lost to the University of Alabama with a score of 1.5-0.5, swept Case Western Reserve University Team A with 2-0, tied with Ohio State University with 1-1, and defeated Case Western Reserve University Team B with a score of 2-0.
Poole said she most enjoyed the third round of the tournament against Ohio State University.
“It was very dynamic. Their case had things that we weren’t expecting, and our case had things that they weren’t expecting,” Poole said.
Freshman Ty Tomasoski, who plays an expert witness for the B team, said he thought the fourth round against Case Western Team B was the most competitive.
“The one that felt the closest in round was against Case B, but we did get two ballots off of them. We swept them,” Tomasoski said.
Tomasoski said competing at the tournament helped expose areas for the team to improve.
“I think the point of the spring invitational is to tell us what we need to work on before we go into the tournaments that actually matter,” Tomasoski said. “The teams we faced were good enough to exploit a lot of flaws in our material, and that’s going to really help us fix those vulnerabilities.”
According to Poole and Tomasoski, junior and team B captain Natalie LeBlanc won a 17-rank witness award. Tomasoski said LeBlanc’s performance in the tournament was excellent.
“She did great,” Tomasoski said. “She closed for both of our defenses. It was amazing.”
The tournament was also the last invitational for team C before it heads to regionals, according to freshman and team C captain Brennan Berryhill.
Team C lost to Wheaton College with a score of 1.5-0.5, lost to the University of Dayton and Case Western Reserve University Team A with 2-0, and won against the University of Minnesota 2-0, according to Berryhill.
Berryhill said the team had some mishaps and did not perform as well as they wanted to.
“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times with some procedural things, and I think if we just clean it up, just present ourselves well, then we’ll be a lot stronger going into it,” Berryhill said.
Berryhill said team C would practice to stay solid on the basics before regionals.
“I think going back to fundamentals like memorization to try to make sure our performance is good, polish up, just kind of do the basics,” Berryhill said. “I think we have a fighting chance next weekend if we do that.”
Berryhill said team C is working diligently and that he believes it can pay off in regionals.
“I think all of us have shown a willingness to work this week and try to get ourselves ready,” Berryhill said. “I believe in my team, I believe that they can get themselves ready, I believe that we can succeed if we just put in the work this week. I have no idea how it will go, but I know if we take care of the things we can control, then it will go a lot better.”
While team C will be competing in regionals this next weekend, teams A and B will have Regionals at the end of February, according to Poole and Berryhill. Poole said team B will need to keep up its competitive spirit in practices during February.
“Our challenge will be maintaining that competitive drive and maintaining excellence in the next few weeks,” said Poole. “We will be hard at work getting ready to go, and definitely going full steam ahead so that we can make a good showing on the last weekend of February.”
