Dogies disappointed at district meet

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
It was a long trip for the Newcastle Dogie Speech team as they travelled to North Platte, Nebraska last weekend for their District Speech Meet. 
The Hole in the Wall District is spread from Sheridan to Spearfish to Cheyenne and then well into the eastern part of Nebraska. The District meet rotates each year from one of the Cheyenne schools to Spearfish and then North Platte, and this was the year for the Nebraska school to host the event.
Head coach Jim Stith and his team set out on the eight hour trip with high hopes of advancing some members to the National Speech Meet in Dallas this summer. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as the team had hoped, as they qualified no one.
“The tournament went pretty well, and our kids performed well for the most part,” Stith began. “The judging situation was a bit questionable, but it was what it was.”
In the tournament, each student was guaranteed two rounds of competition. If they finished in the lower half of their category in each round, they received a “down”, and after two downs they were out of the tournament.
In Congress, students were guaranteed six hours, and the team came out of that with most of their members ranked. Markie Whitney ended the tournament ahead of either the first or second alternate, and because of that, she is eligible for what Stith described as an All-State group of debaters. 
This group would be composed of top students from various schools who are all brought together as one debate team, and they will compete in the World School Debate. This event coincides with the National Speech competition in Dallas this summer, and the winning team will advance to compete in an international meet in Sri Lanka.
Whitney and Shelby Davis competed in Public Forum debate, where they went down and out in the first two rounds. Stith admitted that he was
frustrated by the results of those rounds given the judge’s commentary.
“Both ballots had comments saying their case was excellent and that the debate was very close, but they lost because of the way that one individual judges,” he frowned. “In their second round, they barely lost, and I would say not justifiably. They should have won, but the team that won went on to win the whole thing. Had we had a different judge, it could have been Markie and Shelby who won.”
Newcastle had several entrants in the Duet category, where all but one team went down and out in the initial rounds. Austyn Vaughn and John Barker were the exception, earning an “up” in their first round, but lost in the next two.
Like Duet, in the Debate events all but one competitor lost in the first two rounds. Travis Scribner, the team’s most novice freshman, ended up hitting a filler.
“To qualify X number, they look at how large the pool of competitors is in Lincoln/Douglas or public forum debate, and sometimes they ask coaches to enter another L/D kid if they’re one short,” Stith explained. “Travis hit a filler so he got to go on to the third round where he went out.”
With no members advancing to placing rounds, the Dogies got an early start home on Saturday morning. Later, however, Stith was informed that he had been named District Coach of the Year for the Hole in the Wall District.
“I guess I’m not sure how that happened,” Stith chuckled. “But it’s pretty cool that it did!”
Districts is over, but the Dogies have one final competition. The State Speech meet is scheduled for March 7-9, and though it is not a National Qualifying event, it does award bragging rights for the top performing teams in Wyoming.