On November 21, Speech Team hosted their first tournament ever.

There were sixteen teams competing in the tournament. These teams came from all over the Chicagoland area to place in the tournament. North scores don’t factor into the winner of the tournament, however.

“When you host a tournament, you take yourself out of the team sweepstakes score,” said Speech Team Advisor Harley Brook. “It would be bad etiquette to win your own tournament.”

Hinsdale South took first place in the tournament with a score of 407. Lemont finished second place with a score of 380. Mount Carmel was over 70 points behind with a score of 303. Naperville Central and Willowbrook were fourth with scores of 280 and 275 respectively.

Although North did not include their team scores to factor into the winner of the tournament, they still competed as if they were. Though North did not compete in the overall team sweepstake scores, there were individuals recognized in their specific events.

Josh Whitfield and Quinn Herner placed third overall in Dramatic Duet Acting and Glenn Montero took fifth in Dramatic Interpretation.

The tournament started seven in the morning with the preliminary rounds. There were fourteen different events ranging from dramatic duet acting to original comedy. The tournament ended at 4:30 PM.

“I thought I did pretty well, it was my first time in pros, and I ranked 3, 4, and 5. So for the first time doing that, I did well,” said Sara Hass, senior, and longtime speech competitor.

Participants are scored by judges who rank individuals in their respective events. The individual with the lowest average score places first, and so on.As for the team, there were many new competitors for North that did very well.

“We had a lot of new members competing and even double entered in this tournament, and it was really awesome to see them succeed,” said Hass.

Speech Team also competed in the David Scheidecker Memorial Tournament, hosted by Metea Valley High School.

Although North did not win the tournament, they did finish in the top ten of the competition. Oak Lawn finished first with a score of 411.

The only mention from the David Scheidecker Memorial Tournament was Josh Whitfield and Quinn Herner taking fourth place in Dramatic Duet Acting.

These first two tournaments have been the starting point for the rest of the season. The speech team looks to continue on the rest of the season building off of their prior events and end up qualifying a few people for state.

North heads to La Grange for the Lyons/Argo “Lights, Camera, Speech” tournament on January 9, for their first tournament in 2016.