Speech Team Dominates at Stanton
The Pierce High speech team competed at the Stanton Speech Invitational on Saturday, January 28. Nine other schools attended: Columbus Scotus, Wayne, Howells, Wisner-Pilger, Oakland-Craig, Lutheran High Northeast, Stanton, Elkhorn Valley, and David City. Pierce’s varsity team dominated the rankings, finishing in first place. The junior varsity (JV) team took third place overall.
The speakers’ day began at 8:00 a.m. and finished with awards around 4:00 p.m. The meet consisted of three preliminary rounds with no finals. The rankings from each round were averaged to determine the top six performances in each event.
In the varsity division, three of Pierce’s duets placed. Jacob Jones and Micah Bahnfleth won second place. Molly Harris and Briton Rodenborg finished fourth. Mason Rohrich and Marcus Blunck took sixth place.
Zach Halsey, Jones, and Bahnfleth earned first place in Oral Interpretation of Drama (OID). Also in OID, Blake Douglass, Rodenborg, Harris, Abbey Buettgenbach, and Shane White finished third. Rohrich, Blunck, and Caleb Lohrberg came close behind, earning fourth place. In serious prose Laurie Venteicher, Katie Lockee, and Laurel Bailey earned second, third, and fourth places, respectively.
Halsey finished second in humorous prose. Douglass took fourth place. Ashton Johnson finished fifth in informative speaking. Amy Venteicher took fourth place in persuasive speaking.
Jones earned first place in entertainment speaking, and Lockee finished fourth in extemporaneous speaking. In impromptu speaking, Blunck, Rohrich, and Amy Venteicher finished second, third, and sixth, respectively.
In the JV division, in OID, Sindelar, Arens, Spieker, Unseld, and Tristen Sell took first place. Sam Halsey placed fifth in humorous and third in impromtu. MaKayla Douglass finished sixth in poetry and second in serious prose interpretation. Also in serious prose, London Sindelar and Alisha White took third and fifth, respectively.
Claudia Fleshner earned fifth place in informative. In persuasive, Kira Arnold finished sixth. In extemporaneous, Shannah Unseld finished fourth. Three duets finished in the top six: Sindelar and Kristen Arens, third; Paige Spieker and Unseld, fifth; and Rachel Tweedy and Bailey, sixth.
Remembering the fun of the meet, Bahnfleth said, “It was a speechin’ good time! The meet was interesting with three rounds and no finals, but I would rather have finals.”
Junior Shane White said, “The day was fun, and both teams competed well. Some members improved since last week, but there are still things to work on.”
