Both the A and B Hillsdale Mock Trial teams will progress to a possible appearance at nationals following wins at last week’s regionals tournament at the University of Notre Dame. 

The B team won the tournament with a final ballot score of 7.5-0.5, while the A team finished with a ballot score of 5.5-2.5, according to freshman B team member Joseph Diprima and senior A team member Natalie Leblanc. Both teams received bids to the Opening Round Championship Series, which qualifies teams to compete at nationals. 

The B team members said they felt confident going into the tournament after having swept their last invitational tournament two weeks before, according to Diprima. 

“Everybody really prepped their objection responses and their offensive objections very solidly,” Diprima said. “Everyone had a game plan going in. I’d attribute the team’s success primarily to the work that we put in, but also our captain’s leadership has been fantastic. Everyone has stepped up to fulfill the role that they’re supposed to.”

Junior Nathan Emslie said this season is the best spring season a Hillsdale B team has had to date. 

“The best regionals performance for a B team before this year happened last year, when we got seven ballots,” Emslie said. “This year, we one-upped it with the first time we ever won an invitational and the first time we ever went undefeated in the spring season. So it’s been a very successful season, and there’s still a lot of room for improvement.”

According to Emslie and Diprima, the Hillsdale B team swept the University of Northern Illinois and Wheaton College’s B team with scores of 2-0 in the first two rounds. Hillsdale split one ballot with the University of Northwestern’s A team to win their third round 1.5-0.5 before sweeping the University of Western Michigan 2-0. 

Junior Valerie Check won an Outstanding Attorney Award, and junior Chloe Noller won an Outstanding Witness Award, according to Diprima and Emslie. 

“Valerie had some excellent crosses,” Emslie said. “She did very well. She very much deserved her award, and so did Chloe, so it was encouraging to see them get rewarded for that.” 

Sophomore Miriam Ahern said Noller and Check were very credible in their rounds. 

“Chloe did a phenomenal job establishing her reliability,” Ahern said. “She was very responsive to questions, but also was able to provide excellent explanations of some of the harder facts. In terms of Valerie’s performance, she establishes a really good ethos with the judges. She has a lot of power in her demeanor and she’s excellent at telling a story to the people who are watching. She’s always very good on objections — just a very strong speaker, and I think the judges really love her style.” 

According to Leblanc, the Hillsdale A team defeated the University of Wisconsin-Madison 1.5-0.5 in the first round before splitting ballots 1-1 with the A teams from University of Notre Dame and Wheaton College in the second and third rounds. Hillsdale’s A team swept Wheaton College’s B team 2-0 in the fourth round. 

Leblanc said the tournament was good motivation for the A team. 

“This is really good for us,” Leblanc said. “Because for the next five weeks, it made us really hungry to do very well at ORCS. So now we’ve got the fire — we want to put our nose to the grindstone.” 

According to senior Abigail Wagner, the A team faced a competitive lineup of teams at regionals. “I would say generally that this was considered to be in the upper half of the 30 regionals tournaments,” Wagner said. “Then our schedule specifically had some great competition all across the weekend. It was a pretty difficult schedule, as regionals go.” 

According to Diprima and Leblanc, senior Abby Davis won an Outstanding Attorney Award and Wagner won an Outstanding Witness Award. 

“Abby is excellent,” Leblanc said. “She’s very calm during rounds. I thought her objection performances were particularly good. She was very clear and collected. We had some unexpected things happen in rounds, and even when those happened, she didn’t let them faze her. And Abigail Wagner had a lot of poise this weekend. Both awards were very well-deserved.” 

According to Leblanc, the A team gained cohesion as they head into the next weeks of preparation for ORCS. 

“I felt this weekend was excellent for our team bonding,” Leblanc said. “We had a lot of fun times in the car and listened to fun music. We had some great conversations. That was the highlight for me, the fact that we’re already working together really well, and we’re all super excited to work really hard as a team. We’re all on the same page.