Columbia Falls’ speech and debate team got back to its winning ways at the Hamilton Invitational last week. With their full team on hand, the Wildcats notched a solid victory with multiple placings in every event, beating Whitefish 219-114.

Last weekend’s loss to Whitefish was surely fresh in everyone’s mind coming into this tournament. In Kalispell the previous week, Whitefish landed a strong first place over both Loyola and Columbia Falls, so expectations were high for this match up.

Individual speech events represent a broad spectrum of skills and subjects, from humorous interpretations of literary works to original speeches written by the students. Columbia Falls consistently has competitors who do well across that spectrum. In Hamilton, Columbia Falls had top eight placements in every event.

Ava Chisholm, senior and four year veteran of the team, out spoke orators in two different events to land first place in both Humorous Interpretation and Impromptu speaking, against over 40 competitors in each event. In total, Columbia Falls sent 18 of their 24 speech competitors to the semi-final round, and placed in the top eight in all seven speech events and three debate events. Highlights include senior Jordyn King, who took second in Dramatic Interpretation, freshman Paige Moriarty’s second in Original Oratory, and multiple top placements in Memorized Public Address, Humorous Interpretation and Informative.

In the three debate events, Columbia Falls ran strong as well. In Policy team debate, Whitefish and Columbia Falls went head-to-head directly, with two Columbia Falls teams clashing two Whitefish teams in the semifinals round. Whitefish scored victory in both battles, leading to an all-Whitefish finals in this event with Columbia Falls taking third, fourth, and fifth.

In Public Forum team debate, Columbia Falls sent three teams to the scoring stage - third place for Cassidy Norick and Kelsey Wright, fourth place for Lara Erickson and Jesse Rusche, and eighth place for Delaney Conger and Maggie McKeon. Whitefish team Seth Carmichael and Zoe Dugan placed sixth and Mary Hooks and Hayden Brandt secured seventh.

In Lincoln-Douglas debate, Columbia Falls freshman Chloe Coberley shined once again with an eighth-place finish out of 35 competitors. Chloe is one of several freshman who have demonstrated phenomenal early skills on the team, Norick said.

Columbia Falls will be hosting their two-day invitational tournament on Jan. 5-6, after Christmas break. The state tournament will be January 25-27 in Corvallis. The team is seeking to sign up judges to help with the Columbia Falls tournament. Anyone can participate, and Norick emphasizes that you don’t have to be an expert to be a judge.

“One of the good things about high school speech and debate is that we use lay judges for all of our competitions, so it is a great way for the community to turn out and support the team and get an opportunity to see these amazingly talented kids in action,” she said.

Anyone interested in helping with the home tournament can email coach Norick at tnorick@gmail.com.

Individual competitors results were as follows:

Policy Debate:

3rd Shyane Williams and Danielle Schwalk

4th Calie Jo Johnson and Tre Finley

7th Ella Hutcheson & Ian McKenzie

Public Forum Debate:

3rd Cassidy Norick and Kelsey Wright

4th Lara Erickson & Jesse Rusche

8th Laney Conger & Maggie McKeon

LD Debate:

8th Chloe Coberley

Impromptu:

1st Ava Chisholm

Extemporaneous:

8th Alex Garate

Humorous Interpretation:

1st Ava Chisholm

2nd Jacob Hohman

Dramatic Interpretation:

2nd Jordyn King

Memorized Public Address:

3rd Emmalee Hellen

4th Emma Erickson

Informative:

4th Kennedy Payne

7th Jacob Hohman

Oratory:

2nd Paige Moriarty

7th Danielle Rosenbaum