Sorry this was not posted till late Sunday...been one of those days. This year's novice nationals produced the single best overall Roosevelt novice performance yet at the tournament. My hat is off to you guys. A lot of you prepared well and performed well and you are to commended. You now know you will be eventually able to compete on a much wider scale than just in Iowa.
PF breaks: Top seed Claire Yocom and Murphey Burke, 2nd Seed Lily Nellans and Becky Hall. YB lost in quarters and HN lost in the final round to Bettendorf.
There is a lot of controversy regarding that decision as Ryan Beck and his friend were two of the three on the panel. And, of course, it would be they downed RHS. Still Bettendorf was the winner.
LD: Juliana Courard-Hauri had a huge tournament finishing as the only undefeated LD student in prelims and lost out in semi finals. She had several very, very nice wins in the tournament.
CX: The Hou sisters had a great tournament finishing 4-2 and advancing to octo finals where they lost to Sioux Falls Lincoln. Still, their hard work paid off with some nice decision making and much better communication during the debate between themselves.
Congress: Luke Theuma got off to a poor start Friday night but found the will to fight himself back into contention finishing fourth overall.
We had 4 students who finished as top ten speakers: Julianna was 8th in LD, Lily was tops in PF, Becky 2nd and Murphey 4th.
And a number of the other students attending fared pretty well considering their experience level. So a very fine showing from Roosevelt...as good as any school in the field. Students came from 9 states. We recorded wins over teams from South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, and Nebraska.
I especially want to thank Taylor, Tess, Harrison, Andy and Samantha for their coaching and judging. On a weekend where I had no other help, their efforts were amazing.
