Claiming the top spot among 25 colleges and universities, the Northwest College Forensics team traveled to Salt Lake City for the Great Salt Lake Swing tournament, cohosted by the University of Texas at El Paso, to compete in two back-to-back tournaments.
As a team, the Trappers earned the top spot among community colleges and second overall for the El Paso portion; second in community colleges and fourth overall in the Salt Lake portion; and first in community colleges in debate sweepstakes.
“Hopefully this tournament is a good barometer for the team as we head into the nationals season—we are performing well, and we hope to keep up the momentum,” said Forensics coach Jeannie Hunt.
In the University of Texas at El Paso individual events portion of the swing, Dalen Brazelton of Worland earned third in duet and sixth in communication analysis. Dominic Damiano, also of Worland, placed second in prose, sixth in program oral interpretation, third in duet and fourth in dramatic interpretation, while Trysa Flood of Lovell claimed second in program oral interpretation, first in duet and seventh in communication analysis.
Green River native Abigaile Grubb took third speaker in IPDA, and Brendan Kachnowski of Rock Springs placed fifth in prose, fourth in program oral interpretation, third in duet and sixth in poetry. Genesis Schell of Douglas earned second in duet and fourth in poetry, while Jacinta Schneider of Powell took fifth in dramatic interpretation. Additionally, Jared Lange, also of Rock Springs, claimed second place speaker in IPDA, while Cowley native Mariah Mader earned sixth in dramatic interpretation and Isaabella Munoz of Worland took top spot in prose, program oral interpretation, duet and poetry.
“Isaabella had a stellar tournament. It’s very rare for a student to champion in all of their individual events and place in debate, both as a team and as a speaker,” said Hunt.
In the Utah portion of the swing, only two NWC students competed in individual events. Damiano claimed first in drama, third in program oral interpretation and second in duet, while Kachnowski earned fourth in program oral interpretation, second in duet, fourth in prose and fourth in poetry.
In the Utah debate portion of the tournament, Lange and Munoz placed fifth in open NPDA debate, Flood and Grubb took third place junior NPDA and Munoz earned fourth place open speaker.
The Trappers will be back on the road to compete at the Western States tournament in Seattle, Washington, Feb. 22-24.
To view the team’s full schedule, visit https://nwc.edu/sites/forensics/schedule-results/.