The Chesterton speech team won first place in 7 of the 15 events at the Bishop Noll Varsity Speech Tournament on Saturday, November 19th. The team was followed by Munster with 5 wins, and the remaining 3 events went to Crown Point, Valparaiso, and Bishop Noll. Based on the placings in the top 6 of each event, Chesterton earned the greatest number of sweepstakes points and won the tournament overall.

The team was led by Caibhan McClure (12) who was a double-champion in radio broadcasting and dramatic interpretation. Chesterton students won five other events, including Ethan Markwart (10) in humorous interpretation, Maddi Morton (10) in declamation, Pat Hansen (10) in international extemporaneous speaking, Riley Hawksworth (12) in US extemporaneous speaking, and the team of El Thompson (9) & Savanna Hugley (11) in improvised duo.

In addition to the first-place victory in radio broadcasting, Chesterton closed out 2nd and 3rd with Damion Lopez (10) and Matt Keane (12), respectively. Other top six finishes included TiffanyNicole Nolasco (11) 3rd in humor & 2nd in prose, Dex Trzaska (10) 6th in informative speaking, Pat Hansen 2nd in impromptu speaking, Gigi Hanner (12) 3rd in oratory, Carmen Thomas (10) 2nd in oratory, Matt Keane 5th in original performance, Maddi Morton 4th in original performance, Damion Lopez 3rd in original performance, Lilly Demmon (10) 3rd in poetry, and El Thompson 3rd in prose.

After each tournament, the coaches select a student to honor and take home the team sweepstakes trophy. This week it was split between Pat Hansen and Riley Hawksworth, who both took advantage of a free weekend in the schedule as debaters to help the speech side of the program. The coaches acknowledged the important of both sides of the program working together:

“You don’t get a top program in the country by keeping your debaters ‘over here’ and your speechies ‘over there’,” said coach Dakota McCoy as he presented the trophy. “Teamwork makes the dream work; this hardware just affirms what the older members already know and our younger members should strive to follow.”

On December 2nd the speech team will travel to Peoria, Illinois, to compete against teams from across the nation at the Bradley University Speech Tournament.
The speech team thanks alumnus, Nate Scheerer, and parents, Desi Robertson-Thompson & Nicole Charlene, for their volunteer work judging at the tournament.