The Hillsdale Mock Trial A team finished its invitational season this weekend, placing tenth with an 8.5-7.5 ballot score at the Great Chicago Fire Invitational.
The competition, hosted by the University of Chicago, is more competitive than the American Mock Trial Association Nationals tournament, according to junior Patrick McDonald.
“This is, pound for pound, the hardest tournament of the year,”McDonald said. “Nationals has the best 48 teams. This is closer to the best 24, which means that per team, it’s going to be more difficult.”
Senior and team captain Abby Davis said the tournament was a challenge.
“All of the teams at Great Chicago Fire are phenomenal,” Davis said. “All 24 of them are regular nationals competitors. There’s no such thing as an easy round. They’re all fantastic, and they all pushed our case really hard, so placing in the top half of Great Chicago Fire is really exciting.”
In the first two rounds, Hillsdale’s team hit the University of California, Los Angeles — the team which went on to win the invitational — as well as the University of Texas at Austin, both senior and team captain Njomëza Pema and McDonald said.
Hillsdale lost both rounds with respective scores of 0.5-3.5 and 1-3. The Hillsdale A team won the last two rounds against Michigan State University and the University of Michigan with two scores of 3.5-0.5.
Davis said the team’s goals for the tournament were strengthening teamwork and shaking off rust from the team’s break last month.
“I think people did well both days,” Davis said. “But the second day, everything felt a lot smoother. It felt like we knew what to expect from each other better, and we’re also able to anticipate each other’s needs.”
According to Pema, McDonald won an Outstanding Attorney Award with 35 out of 40 ballots.
“Watching the judges’ eyes light up while he explained our case theory — it was like watching someone hit a home run,” Pema said. “It was like that both times he gave his closings. The judges were totally enamored with his performance. I was proud to sit at the counsel table with him.”
McDonald said the team reacted well to both the successes and failures of the tournament.
“We think we’ve not hit our ceiling in terms of how well we can perform,” McDonald said. “UCLA and UT Austin were both just fantastic, a pleasure to go against. Both their attorneys and witnesses were very solid, and it was a lot of fun to be in both of those rounds, just because we had the opportunity to go up against opponents of that caliber. I think that the team’s mindset during and after those rounds was good.”
Davis said the team had several tight losses, which she said is encouraging.
“We also had some really close ballots that we lost against some really good teams,” Davis said. “I don’t think that we’re anywhere near our ceiling right now — we competed well, but we also made mistakes that we can definitely fix. So it’s exciting to see really close ballots that could definitely be fixed by very tangible things that we know how to fix.”
According to McDonald, Hillsdale’s A team will compete at Regionals this weekend, which will determine whether the team continues on to the Opening Round Championship Series. A top finish at ORCS means that Hillsdale will compete at Nationals.