Speech coach Julie Ozols analyzes judging sheets from regionals with speech member London Shannon-Muscolino ’25 (Arteaga/LION).

Speech Team hopes to continue its streak of success despite its smaller group in comparison to prior years. The Regionals tournament started Feb. 3 with members Ava Armstrong ‘24, London Shannon-Muscolino ‘25, Naimah Arteaga ‘24, and Jayla Morgan ‘24 going through to the finals in the Sectionals tournament Feb. 10. 

“The State series is incredibly competitive,” Speech Team coach Kirsten Manthei said. “When we are focused on getting ready for the State series, we try to create a close team bond and encourage all of the competitors to support one another. That means that they try to go watch each other compete, and they get excited when a teammate succeeds.”

During her 20 years of coaching, Manthei has seen teams anywhere from six to 60 members work together to develop relationships with each other and their coaches. 

“It really helps when the team feels a competitive edge and pushes themselves to do better each week,” Speech Team head coach Sarah Pouls said. “Pandemic speech, both remote and then hybrid, was awful. It really hurt our team and I think we’re still recovering.”

Students do better when they feel like their teammates believe in them and are encouraging them, Pouls said. The better someone performs individually, the better the team will do overall. 

“Everyone is extremely supportive of the goals of others, striving to push each other to be the best they possibly can,” member Ava Armstrong ‘24 said. “It is definitely a competitively-driven team, as the hope at tournaments is to make it into the final round for your event. I’m hoping to go for Poetry Reading and Dramatic Duet Acting.” 

Poetry Reading is where you create a story using published spoken word poems, splicing them together. Dramatic Duet Acting is a two-person scene cut from a published dramatic play. Both are eight minutes long.

This year, 31 people are on the team in contrast to 40 members last year, Armstrong said. However, meetings tend to follow the same flow of last year because of the comfortable competitive environment created within. 

Another member of the team, Elizabeth Mason ‘25, shares a similar opinion regarding how the team is run.

“When attending practices in the competitive season, we generally have a combination of having a fun time and having a competitive goal oriented drive to push ourselves to do the best we can in competitions,” Mason said. “The most important part of competing well as a team is being there to support your teammates. Most events have individual competitors, but while we can’t be there competing with them, we will be in the background cheering them on as loud as possible letting them know that we will be there for them every step of the way.”

The success of the speech team does not depend on the number of kids on the team, but the

motivation and drive of those who are on the team, Manthei said. The individuality of the sport highlights goal setting and self improvement, so with time and practice this year’s speech team looked for success.