Dogies launch speech season

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
In the 11th hour, former Newcastle Speech coach Jim Stith stepped back into the role he vacated a few years ago as the team found themselves without a coach shortly before the season was to begin. 
The timing being right, along with the fact that his wife Lexie was available to fill the assistant position, meant Stith was more than happy to take the team after the resignation of Lindsey Burling.
“The kids needed a coach, and they asked me if I would be willing to do that for the team,” Stith explained. “I enjoy it and being able to have Lexie working with me is awesome. It works out well because she teaches the freshmen so she knows them, and I have the upper level kids so I know them.”
There are 15 students out for Speech this year, including seven freshmen. With only one senior on the team, the future looks promising. 
The squad opened up their season with a meet at Cheyenne South on Nov. 30–Dec. 1. Stith admitted that there were some nerves as they headed into the tournament, both for the newbies and for the veterans who needed to shake some rust off.
“South was pretty stressful since it was the first meet for a lot of our kids,” he began. “This is also a pretty big tournament with schools from Colorado and Wyoming. However, one of our freshmen got first place in poetry on her first time out, so we were really impressed with that.”
It was Angelyse Perez who snagged the only placement for the team on the day, doing so in the Poetry division.
Though they didn’t end up in the top six, juniors Markie Whitney and Shelby Davis each broke into Super Congress for a shot at placing.
The Super Congress is a three and a half hour finals round which, according to Stith, is quite intense. During the course of the two-day tournament, participants compete in one of three chambers – one Senate and two Houses. The top ten finishers in each chamber advance to Super Congress for a shot at the top six places. 
The squad was back at it last weekend, but a little closer to home with a tournament in Spearfish. Both Stiths were pleased to see a vast improvement from Cheyenne.
“We had a huge improvement from the first meet to this one,” Jim nodded. “The last tournament had a novice and a varsity division while Spearfish was varsity only, so all the kids were thrown into that upper level there, and everyone improved across the board.”
The improvement Stith spoke of was evident with five Dogies walking away with places on the weekend. Junior Austyn Vaughn took sixth in the Drama division, while Liam Barker and Travis Scribner also placed sixth in Duet. Sophomore Asia Graham joined her teammates with a sixth place finish in Congress and Whitney was the top placer for the team, picking up second in Congress. 
Unlike in Cheyenne, there was no Super Congress in Spearfish. Rather, the top six places were awarded to highest placing competitors from each of the three houses. As a result, Whitney actually won her House, but was edged out for first place overall by someone from the other House Chamber. Graham won her sixth place in the Senate. 
“Markie, Asia and Shelby all had a great weekend,” Jim nodded. “We don’t know who performed better between Markie and the person who won because they did not compete against each other, and I thought Shelby should have broken into Super Congress, but somehow her ballot went missing.”
Though she didn’t break into finals, freshman Emma Haugen did win one of her Poetry rounds. Both coaches also watched Lacey Koester perform in one of her Informative rounds, and each came away quite impressed with how she conducted herself.
“The big takeaway was how much more comfortable the kids seemed to be after Cheyenne,” Lexie Stith began. “Kids who didn’t place well before were solidly in the middle last weekend. We saw things we need to be working on of course, but overall we are very happy with how things are going so far.”
The team is on a break for the holidays, and will be back in action on January 11-12 with a tournament in Buffalo.