Polishing their performances

The six-member team of the Saratoga High School speech team traveled to Green River over the weekend to compete in the Green River Invitational Speech and Debate Tournament. This was one of two tournaments that Saratoga is competing in before the New Year and are novice/varsity meets. In meets such as those, novice members are still allowed to use their source material during rounds as they are often still committing them to memory.

“These young ladies have been practicing their presentations and pieces since October and it was a great experience for them to get new sets of eyes and ears on their performance,” said Johnny Mercer, head coach for the speech team.

Freshman Kelsey Hytrek and senior Kailey Hytrek were both able to make it to the final rounds in their categories. According to Mercer, novice Kelsey Hytrek scored consistently throughout the competition in the drama category and finished in 7th place. Kailey Hytrek, meanwhile, competed in varsity poetry.

“(Kailey) saw improvements in her scores as she went through the rounds,” Mercer said. “Her final place was 6th in poetry. I got to watch her during one of the rounds and it’s amazing to see how a student can take feedback and adapt their style to suit the expectations of judges. Her piece is something to witness.”

While the other four members of the team didn’t make it into semi-finals or finals, Mercer added that they did amazing jobs as well. In some cases, according to the head coach, they were competing in categories that had as many as 28 other competitors with schools that have both larger programs and more tournaments under their belts. While this was the first tournament for Saratoga, this is the fourth tournament in Wyoming for the season.

This weekend, the six talk jocks head to Cheyenne to compete in the Cheyenne East Invitational. This will be the final novice/varsity meet for the team before January, where all students will be considered varsity and must have their pieces memorized.