*Roosevelt wins both tournaments--Speech and Debate-becoming the first Iowa program to win all three state championship events in one season (the Trifecta).
*The margins of the team wins were significant
*This senior class capped off their Iowa seasons with a number of personal successes.
*Our depth of youngsters was MOST impressive. We had a number of underclassmen, including some freshmen in their first speaking experiences do VERY well.
*We had an English Language Leaner (Rizan), who immigrated Africa, place third in her event at State! She has a little more than two years of English as her main language. She is fluent in five languages. She had the guts to stand up in a final round, under a lot of pressure and place. What a kid!
Like any tournament, not everyone is going to place. But on the speech side of things there are two pretty amazing statistics:
1). Dowling converted semi finalist into finalist at a rate of 62%-an incredible feat at state considering a 50% conversion is impressive. This group of Roosevelt students converted at 73%!
2). Roosevelt produced more finalist than Dowling produced semi finalist-which is stunning because Dowling is such a solid speech program.
In debate, the turn around of the Public Forum team in response to what happened to us the past couple of months was incredible. It is the second year in a row that Roosevelt closed out finals in Public Forum Debate. One top of that, Roosevelt entered 10 students (the maximum) in Congressional debate, breaking nine to the championship house.
Here is a copy of the notes going downtown to the Public Relations Department for the DMPS results of All Iowa Finals:
All Iowa Finals Champions from Roosevelt:
Murphy Burke/Lily Nellans/Elena Hildebrandt and
Andy Anderson (Public Forum) Sr-Sr-Jr-So
Luke Theuma (Congress) Sr
Lily Nellans (Original Oratory) Sr
Murphy Burke (Dramatic Interp) Sr
Lily Nellans (Foreign Extemp) Sr
Max Pilcher (Spontaneous) Sr
Max Pilcher (Domestic Extemp) Sr
Claire Wallace (Expository-Experimental Event) Fr
Runner-Up Winners from Roosevelt
Marlee Rutledge (Lit Program) So
Jacob Thompson (Spontaneous) Fr
Murphy Burke (Original Oratory) Sr
Claire Yocom (Expository) Sr
Reid Wade (Sr) 2nd best Lincoln
Douglas Speaker
Third Place Finishes from Roosevelt
Henry Winber (Congress) Jr
Jacob Appel (Spontaneous) Jr
Rizan Torhala (Prose) Fr
Michael Cummings (Foreign Extemp) Sr
Michael Cummings (Lit program) Sr
Anna Barcus (Expository) So
Emma Weddle (Jr)
3rd Best Lincoln Douglas Speaker
Fourth Place Finishes from Roosevelt
Danny Drane (Foreign Extemp) So
Jane Rice (Prose) So
Anson Tonelli (Domestic Extemp) So
Julianna Courard-Hauri (Dramatic Interp) Sr
Luke Theuma (Spontaneous) Sr
Henry Winber/Danny Drane (Duo Interp) Jr/So
Jenna Pokorny (Original Oratory) Jr
Anna Barcus (Poetry) So
Marjorie Lagan (Expository) Fr
Fifth
Place Finishes from Roosevelt
Jacob Appel (Foreign Extemp) Jr
Jacob Thompson (Domestic Extemp) Fr
Sixth
Place Finishes from Roosevelt
Christine Vu (Lit Program) Sr
Miranda Vermeer (Lit Program) Fr
Miranda Gruber (Dramatic Interp) Fr
Clair Yocom (Congress Debate) Sr
Sixth
Place Finishes from Lincoln
Giovanni
Bahen/Phylicia Brown (Duo Interp) (unk)
Leelabari
Fulbel LD Speaker
Semi Finalist in Debate from Lincoln:
Adrian Mitchell and Sivani Parsa (Public
Forum Debate) Sr/Sr
Quarter Finalist
in Debate from Roosevelt:
Theodore Appel and Max Pilcher (Policy Debate) Jr/Sr
Reid Wade (Lincoln Douglas Debate) Sr
Savana Kouri and Anson Tonelli (Public Forum Debate)
Fr/So
Jacob Thompson 7th Congressional Debate Fr
Claire Wallace 8th Congressional Debate Fr
School Honors:
Roosevelt: Speech
Championship and Debate Championships
Roosevelt: Top
Public Forum Debate School
Top Congress Debate School
2nd Best Lincoln Douglas School
Lincoln: 2nd
Best Public Forum School
Senior of the Year
Honors: Lily Nellans of Roosevelt
(Sr)
Notes for Press Release:
The All Iowa Finals of 2014 was really the Lily Nellans show: Three Individual Championships (Foreign
Extemp, Original Oratory and Public Forum Debate) plus Senior of the year. But she was backed up by double champion
fellow seniors Max Pilcher and Murphy Burke.
For Nellans, it was her 6-7-8th Individual state titles
including sweeping Foreign Extemp all four years of her high school
career. For Burke, it was her 3rd
individual title and for another Roosevelt Senior, Luke Theuma, it was his
third as well. The championships created
the first ever sweep of Iowa Speech and Debate championships as Roosevelt also
won the IHSSA State Team Title in January.
Roosevelt’s speech performance was significant advancing 36 entries into
semi finals and 26 into finals.
Roosevelt is coached by:
Harry Strong (Head Coach); Nate Fredericks (Asst Head Coach); Kelly
Lawler (Speech); Billy Strong; and Grace Rogers
Lincoln is coached by:
Jessie Meyer (Head Coach) and Zach Morgan
