Sitka High Cleans Up At Forensic Regionals

By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    Sitka High School won the sweepstakes awards for drama, debate, forensics and overall categories at the Region V championships held here Friday and Saturday.
    Mt. Edgecumbe High School, meet co-host, also celebrated successes, with students reaching finals in six events.
    Schools besides Sitka and Edgecumbe competing in the two-day event were Skagway, Haines, Metlakatla, Juneau, Ketchikan and Kodiak. The tournament drew in local volunteers to judge the various categories.
    The regional competition concluded Saturday with the final debate, awards and command performances at the Performing Arts Center.

Sitka High School’s only senior on the drama, debate forensics team, Aiden LaFriniere, right, plays chess against Alexander Allison Saturday between events at the Region V DDF meet. The Sitka team took home championship trophies in all three team categories, drama, debate and forensics, at the southeast regional competition. Mt. Edgecumbe had students reaching finals in six events. (Sentinel photo by James Poulson)


Sitka High
    Sitka High coach Christian Litten said he was pleased with how his team performed, with wins in drama, debate, forensics, and overall categories.
    “We had a lot of really strong competition and our team did really well across the board,” said Litten, who coaches the Wolves with Amy Ainslie. “We had some upsets but also some surprises, in a good way. Our hard work kind of paid off.”
    One of the more challenging events was debate, since there wasn’t much time to prepare arguments on the complex topic of whether the U.S. should ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
    “I think our team did really, really well with a short amount of time and not enough practice,” the coach said. “They performed really well throughout the tournament and our team had the same struggles everyone had here and there throughout the tournament with the debate topic.”
    Junior Francis Myers was first in extemporaneous speaking and in duo with Aiden LaFriniere. He placed second in debate and fifth in dramatic interpretation. Myers and partner Angela Bahna, strong competitors at every meet, took second after losing in the debate final to a Juneau team. Another Sitka team, Reagean Wingard and Sarah Todd, captured third.
     Myers has been performing well all year in debate and extemporaneous speaking, and won the regional title in extemp with 30 minutes to prepare a talk on why police recruitment and retention is a problem in the U.S. Another category he’s been enjoying is duo interpretation, where he and LaFriniere placed first performing a detective story.
    “It’s a funny piece with a lot of puns; it’s silly, and the way we succeed is to up the silliness as much as we can,” Myers and LaFriniere have placed first in all competitions this year with the performance in which Myers is the detective and Lafriniere is everyone else.
     Myers praised LaFriniere’s performance throughout the tournament, in which he took home regional championship titles in humorous interpretation, duo, solo, and readers theater.
    Myers was pleased to see two Sitka debate teams reach semis, given the challenges that Litten mentioned.
     “And there was a lot of different cases and proceedings, and a lot of different, intricate details that we had to get very quickly in order to do as well as we did this meet,” Myers said.
    The teams will present a showcase night at the Performing Arts Center on Feb. 22, and the state meet will be Feb. 27-March 1 in Anchorage.

SHS Results
Extemporaneous Commentary: 5. Reagean Wingard; 6. Avery Moctezuma-Hernandez
Extemporaneous Speaking: 1. Francis Myers (regional champ); 2. Angela Bahna
Informative Speaking: 3. Reagean Wingard
Dramatic Interpretation: 4. Naomi Capp; 5. Francis Myers
Humorous Interpretation: 1, Aiden LaFriniere (regional champ); 5. Caellum Wentzel
Duo Interpretation: 1. Aiden LaFriniere and Francis Myers (regional champs); 3. Naomi Capp and Lazaria Kubacki; 6. Caellum Wentzel and Avery Moctezuma-Hernandez
Mime: 2. Ian Bagley
Duet Acting: 2. Abbigail Mosley and Lazaria Kubacki; 6. Reagean Wingard and Naomi Capp
Solo Acting: 1. Aiden LaFriniere (regional champ); 6. Abbigail Kubacki
Readers Theater: 1. Aiden LaFriniere, Reagean Wingard, Olivia Skan (regional champs); 3. Lazaria Kubacki, Naomi Capp, Abbigail Mosley, and Cemre Yenigelen
Public Forum Debate: 2. Francis Myers, Angela Bahna; 3. Reagean Wingard, Sarah Todd
Sitka High School Team Awards:
Region V Drama Champions
Region V Debate Champions
Region V Forensics Champions
Region V Overall Sweepstakes Champions

Mt. Edgecumbe High School drama, debate and forensics senior class team members Artemis McEwen (Sitka), Sage Martin (Port Alexander), Kaylynn Pelowook (Wales), Kasak Smyth (Golovin), Addisyn Anthony (Anchorage), Turtle Larson (Koliganek), Jared Cross (Elim), Riley Ayapan (Akiachak), Gale McCrary (Noorvik) and Camron Isaak (St. Mary’s) are recognized during Region V championships Saturday at Sitka Performing Arts Center. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

Mt. Edgecumbe Results
    MEHS coach Lynn Bastoky said students had been back just two weeks before Regions, and it was a bit of a “whirlwind” getting ready for the tournament.
    But she said students logged some top performances, and she was pleased to see students reach finals in six events, including:
    Duet: Riley Ayapan (senior, Akiachak) and Gale McCrary (senior, Noorvik)
    Extemporaneous Speaking: Kasak Smyth (senior, Golovin)
    Humorous Interpretation: Riley Ayapan
Informative Speaking: Isla Teague (sophomore, Tok)
    Reader’s Theater: Camron Isaak (senior, St. Mary’s), Artemis McEwen (senior, Sitka), Kasak Smyth, and Riley Ayapan
    Solo Acting: Gale McCrary, who medaled in his event.
    Coach Bastoky wanted to acknowledge the seniors performing in their last regional meet: Artemis McEwen (Sitka); Sage Martin (Port Alexander); Kaylynn Pelowook (Wales);
Kasak Smyth (Golovin); Addisyn Anthony (Anchorage); Turtle Larson (Koliganek); Jared Cross (Elim); Riley Ayapan (Akiachak); Gale McCrary (Noorvik); Camron Isaak (St. Mary’s).

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