The mock trial A and B teams celebrate after taking the top two ranks at the regional tournament.
Courtesy | Chloe Noller
Two Hillsdale College Mock Trial teams placed first and second at the regional tournament over the weekend and took their next step toward competing for the national championship.
Mock trial teams A and B will advance to the Opening Round Championship Series in March, the tournament leading up to the National Mock Trial Tournament.
Teams A and B finished with scores of 8-0 and 7-1, according to Justin Lee, senior and captain of team A. Lee said this is the first time Hillsdale’s program has taken both first and second place at a regional tournament.
Team A swept the entire tournament with scores of 2-0, defeating Ohio State University team C, Ohio University team A, Ohio University team B, and University of Cincinnati team A without dropping a single ballot, according to Lee and junior Njomeza Pema. Additionally, two members of team A won outstanding attorney awards, with Lee winning a 20-rank award for his perfect score and Pema earning an 18-rank award.
“I’m really grateful that we swept,” Pema said. “That was an incredible surprise, but a surprise nonetheless, because there were definitely some rounds that I could have seen going either way.”
Pema said the team performed well throughout the tournament and it improved over the course of the weekend.
“We definitely put in our hardest work, but especially the first day I think we were still trying to get our feet in the water,” Pema said. “By the time we got to the second day of competition, I think we were all in and we performed even better than we’d done the day prior.”
Lee said that he was proud of team A’s performance.
“8-0 speaks for itself,” Lee said. “We pulled it together and we performed well.”
Lee also said he had spent Saturday night with sophomore Patrick McDonald and junior Abby Davis preparing cleaner responses for the next day.
“I think it was our objection responses in the fourth round, the very last round,” Lee said. “Patrick had a particularly good response to a very, very difficult objection that he ended up winning, so I’m very proud of him, and the work that we were able to do in that time.”
Hillsdale College team B swept University of Kentucky Team C, Penn State team A, and Eastern Michigan University team A with scores of 2-0 and split ballots for a score of 1-1 against Carnegie Mellon Team A.
According to Noller, sophomore Nathan Emslie won his first outstanding attorney award after his cross examinations at the tournament.
“We’re so proud of him,” Noller said. “He’s on the prosecution, and his cross, especially in the fourth round, was excellent.”
Members of team A and team B said they are looking forward to preparations for competing at the Opening Round Championship Series in a few weeks. According to Noller and Lee, the American Mock Trial Association will require teams to make a few case changes after regionals.
“Going into ORCS, the American Mock Trial Association always changes up a few things, so they’ve given us a new witness,” Lee said. “There are just some minor tweaks, so we’ll have to adjust our material accordingly and then get ourselves back up to polish with everything else.”
Pema said discipline and hard work outweigh talent in competition.
“I think that we have built a really good positive culture of encouraging each other to work without making it toxic, and of just enjoying the work while we do it,” she said.
Noller said the teams would focus on honing their performance in order to compete their best at ORCS.
“We’re really looking to make sure that we’re getting all our bases covered for everything and then just being really clean and really polished,” Noller said. “I think it’s going to come down to polish and performance at ORCS, because these are really good teams.”
