This year Speech has come back to defending their State title after it was cancelled in 2020. In previous years, whenever Speech qualified for State, the team would go to different schools and perform in front of judges. Now, Speech does live competitions in front of judges on zoom calls.

“For state I had to stay at home, so it was harder for me to feed off of the energy from those who were at the school, but they really tried to incorporate the at-homers as much as they could,” Gaby Ruiz, sophomore, said, “They would do a grand reveal of who got to make it to the next round and we would all get to see it at the same time on blackboard collaborate. Everyone was really excited for one another and it was a really good time given the circumstances.” 

Students dominated in multiple events—Cynthia Chockalingam, senior, Anna Raycroft, sophomore, Shriya Iyer, senior, Mateo Bedolla, junior, Michael McDunn, senior, and Chloe Sarkady, freshman, all made it to quarterfinals in Impromptu or Humor. Additionally, other students advanced to Quarterfinals in Drama, Duo, and Broadcasting, as well as breaking in other events. 

“For a while our team worked individually and separately,” Anna Raycroft, sophomore, said. “So it was so nice to have everybody together to experience something amazing together.” 

The team is now preparing for another grand victory at nationals, with many students qualifying. 

“For nationals, my goals right now are just to have the most amount of fun I can possibly have,” Anna said. “Sometimes when we focus too hard on achieving a certain goal, we often lose sight of the whole reason why we do it.”