Sitka High DDF Team Wins Titles at State

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Category: News

Created on Wednesday, 05 March 2025 15:43

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SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer

The Sitka High drama, debate and forensics team won multiple team titles for its ninth year in a row, and captured several individual awards, at the state championship meet in Anchorage last weekend.

In addition to first place team plaques for Overall, Debate and Forensics, the team finished second in points for Drama for Division II.

Sitka state champion DDF team members pose with their Division II plaque in the forensics category. At the state championship meet in Anchorage, the team won three out of four team contests for the division, and numerous individual awards. They are, from left, Lazaria Kubacki, Avery Moctezuma-Hernandez, Caellum Wentzel, Ian Bagley, Abbigail Mosley, Naomi Capp, Sarah Todd, Olivia Skan, Angela Bahna, Reagean Wingard, Aiden LaFriniere, Francis Myers and Jade Newman. (Photo provided)

 Both Sitka High and Mt. Edgecumbe High School took teams to compete against top performers, debaters and speakers from high schools throughout the state at the three-day tournament that started Thursday.

Sitka High performers reached finals in nearly every category, taking top prize in solo acting (Aiden LaFriniere), duo interpretation (LaFriniere and Francis Myers) and foreign extemporaneous speaking (Angela Bahna).

Coaches Christian Litten and Amy Ainslie said they couldn’t be prouder of the team, composed mainly of underclassmen. The team has only one senior (LaFriniere), who finaled in all of his events.

“His individual pieces all did really well, and he and Francis (Myers) swept the duo category,” Litten said. Their comic duo interp piece, “Black Fedora,” received first place in all rounds from all judges.

“It was a great way for Aiden to end his high school DDF career,” Ainslie said. “He stepped it up and made us all really proud at state.”

SHS' Myers and Bahna were the only competitors from a small school to break into elimination rounds for public forum debate, and the pair took home second place in the state tourney.

Myers, a junior, noted that the DDF team lost 10 seniors to graduation last year, so he was pleased to see the team pull out multiple state team titles.

“I was really impressed with a lot of our younger members. Coming into this tournament, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed,” he said. “But they really stood their ground, we did a lot of good work and I was impressed with the team as a whole because we were so young.”

In addition to Myers' first place with LaFriniere in duo, he was second in debate with partner Bahna, and third in readers theater, with Reagean Wingard and Olivia Skan with their fast-paced “Complete Works of William Shakespeare.”

He attributed his and LaFriniere’s win in duo to their hard work over six months to make the piece “very clean,” with smooth transitions.

“It’s a funny piece and usually those don’t do very well, but because ours was clean enough, we had a lot of characters and a lot of movement we were able to bring out that victory,” Myers said.

Myers and Bahna said the debate topic, "Should the United States Accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court?" was a difficult one.

“It was a close debate, both teams spoke very, very well,” Myers said. “All of our speeches were great, and we did promote our arguments as best as we could. But in the end, it’s up to the five judges on which arguments they value more.”

Bahna said the activity of preparing for debates, and coordinating with her debate partner, were among the highlights of the meet.

“We debated eight times over these past few days, it was just really nice to work together, put our ideas together and we took second at state,” she said. “We were excited to be able to make it all the way to the final round. While we do wish we took first like in previous years, I think considering both of us never made it to the final round, it was a good thing for us.”

Sophomore Naomi Capp says she was pleased with the results of the duo piece she performed with Lazaria Kubacki. They were ranked first in two preliminary rounds, and fourth in another, and placed fourth overall, with their piece “Big Mouth.”

“It’s a really awesome piece and I’ll be sad to see it go but I’m happy I got the opportunity to work and perform with Lazaria on it, and I can’t wait for next year,” she said.

Litten said the team is poised for another strong showing in 2026.

“Our team is mostly going to be returning, and should be really strong going into next year as well,” he said. “We’ll have some very strong senior debaters, we have some sophomores that are going to be now be upper classmen, and they’ll be really stepping up their game. They did a great job at state tournament. We had a lot of young people who did really well at the tournament, who had some standout performances that got to finals and they had to fight for it.”

“We have a young team but they met the high bar Sitka High has set for itself,” co-coach Ainslie said.

Results for the 2025 Alaska State Drama, Debate, & Forensics Championship

Reader’s Theater - 3. Francis Myers, Olivia Skan, & Reagean Wingard

Solo Acting - 1. Aiden LaFriniere; 5. Jade Newman

Duet Acting - 5. Abbigail Mosley & Lazaria Kubacki

Humorous Interpretation - 2. LaFriniere

Duo Interpretation - 1. Francis Myers & Aiden LaFriniere; 4. Naomi Capp & Lazaria Kubacki

Original Oratory - 4. Angela Bahna; 5. Olivia Skan; 6. Sarah Todd

Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking - 1. Angela Bahna

Public Forum Debate - Angela Bahna & Francis Myers

Division II Sweepstakes

Drama: 2nd Place

Debate: 1st Place

Forensics: 1st Place

Overall Sweepstakes: 1st Place