Forensics team surprises Whitworth with the gold

MHCC’s speech team won the first-place team sweepstakes in the Pacific University-Whitworth University Speech and Debate Tournament on Oct. 25-26.

“Collectively, as a team, we kind of assumed the award would go to one of the big schools like Whitworth, Lewis & Clark or Pacific, so even though they read our name, we started clapping like, ‘Yeah, good job, other school,’ ” said Chris Josi, who won first place in Program of Oral Interpretation (POI). “And then it clicked for all of us, in sync, ‘Oh, they read our name? That’s awesome!’

“The coach from Whitworth who was reading off our name for the award also seemed pleasantly impressed,” Josi said.

Mt. Hood coach Shannon Valdivia was “impressed” but not necessarily surprised.

“I know my students can compete at a high level. I was thrilled that the team walked away with first place overall honors against many top quality four-year programs,” said Valdivia.

On the first day of the tournament, hosted at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Saints speakers Karasalla Fale and Josi took first in their respective events (poetry, for Fale). They repeated the  feat the next day in a session run by Whitworth organizers, Fale winning in impromptu and Josi in POI, this time joined by Basil Hawley, who earned second in the novice International Public Debate Association (IPDA) competition.

Additional honors collected by Mt. Hood participants: Hawley got fourth in after-dinner speaking; Logan Clark took fifth in after-dinner speaking; and Fale won third place in POI.

Success continued in the Whitworth-run session: Fale received third in extemporaneous, third in poetry, and fifth in POI; Josi took fourth in prose interpretation; Eva Sanchez earned seventh in poetry; Clark was awarded a bronze medal in open IPDA and eighth place for top speaker; and Hawley achieved fourth-best speaker in debate.

“I’m really happy with our team. They did a great job. Even though we only took five members, we certainly made a statement in our circuit,” said Josi about the team’s performance.

Mt. Hood plans on taking its whole group (as opposed to just five members) to the Lower Columbia College Dugaw-Smelt Classic, a tournament held in Longview, Wash. Valdivia said the team is preparing by “running around like chickens with our heads cut off… just trying to get everything done.”

“The amount of success we will have when we come in full-strength is going to be a force to be reckoned with,” predicted Hawley.