Havre speech wins at Choteau holiday meet

Press release

The Havre High School speech and debate team excelled at a holiday meet in Choteau Saturday, bringing home three first-place finishes and two team trophies.

“Our competitors keep improving for each tournament,” head coach Tim Leeds said. “If we can keep this momentum up, we should be in a good position for divisionals and state next month.”

Havre was one of 18 schools competing at the Frost and Flannel Filibuster Invitational in Choteau, with some teams coming from as far away as Bigfork, Eureka, Twin Bridges and West Yellowstone.

Havre outscored the other schools to bring home team trophies in speech with 56 points and in debate with 62 points.

In Lincoln-Douglas debate, freshman Paige Bertelsen and junior Xavier Ulano, a third-year public forum debater who switched events and was competing at his first tournament in Lincoln-Douglas, went undefeated in preliminary rounds to face off in finals.

Bertelson won the round on a split decision, 2-1, to take first and Ulano took second.

Freshman Mackenzie Kuhn went 1-2 in preliminary rounds and ended up in fourth place in Lin-coln-Douglas debate.

Freshman Kate Hemmer took perfect scores in the finals round in original oratory to take first, while third-year public forum debaters Joram Randolph and Noah Teasley, both juniors, defeated a tough team from Class B debate powerhouse Bigfork to take first.

Policy debate team LillieAnn Mecklenburg, a junior, and Dartanion Kaftan, a sophomore, also slugged it out with a tough Bigfork team, ending in second place.

Senior Tana Gorecki and junior Elaine Atkinson earned nearly perfect scores in the preliminary rounds and ended going into the finals in spontaneous oral interpretation of literature in a three-way tie for first. The panel of judges gave widely varying scores in the finals, in which Atkinson ended up in second and Gorecki took third.

Havre’s informative speakers also excelled, with sophomore Melanie Veith earning perfect marks in preliminaries and senior Alyssa Smith, competing for her first year, taking one first and two seconds in preliminaries. The two also scored well agains the tough competition in finals, but a few points short of a first-place finish. Veith ended in second place and Smith took third.

Senior Angelle Roen, a first-year Blue Pony speaker, also earned high marks in preliminary in the finals round and ended in third place in memorized public address.

Sophomore Tristan Molyneaux, competing for her second year in Havre but her first in humorous oral interpretation of literature, pushed past some tough competition to break into the finals round in her event. Molyneaux ended up in seventh in humorous interp.

Havre now has two weeks off over Christmas break before heading to the Great Falls Central High School invitational, with all speech and debate events at the University of Providence campus.

Havre then heads to Simms for the Simms/Power-Dutton-Brady invitational before traveling to Miles City for the Class A Eastern Divisional Tournament.

The top 12 in each event at the divisional tournament earn a trip to the Class A State Tournament, hosted this year in Whitefish.