Havre speakers do well at massive meet in Helena

Press release

A small team of Havre speech and debaters went to a massive tournament in Helena over the weekend, and although none placed, they came close to moving into the outrounds for placement.

Havre took three competitors, informative speaker Carinna Kline, Lincoln-Douglas debater Trinity Olsen and impromptu speaker Paige Anderson, with the rest of the team having conflicting events or other issues that prevented their competition.

And the Havre trio faced a massive set of competitors.

The Valley of Gold speech and drama meet, with speech at Helena Capital High School and drama at East Helena High School, and Tournament of Champions debate tournament hosted by Carroll College, saw nearly 700 competitors from nearly 40 schools, representing all classes of high school competition.

“I would have liked to have had the full team here for this competition, it was a great experience,” Havre High head coach Tim Leeds said. “But these are busy kids; they have a lot on their plates and I don’t want them to miss other opportunities.

“And Carinna, Trinity and Paige did really well,” Leeds added. “They almost made it into the finals rounds.”

Olsen, a junior in her second year on the team and her first year in Lincoln-Douglas debate, lost her first two rounds but came back to win the next three. She ended up in 20th place out of 48 debaters after the five guaranteed rounds, just missing the octafinals single-elimination advancement round of the top 16.

Sophomore Anderson, a second-year Havre High speaker in her first year as an impromptu speaker, received some great comments and critiques and some top placements. Anderson was ranked in second place in one of her preliminary rounds and third in another.

But breaking into the top 16 for the semifinal round was a tough pull in the pool of 60 impromptu speakers, and Anderson just missed the cut.

Kline, a senior in her third year on the team who switched to informative speaking the end of last year, also received some good critiques and some high marks but did not quite break into the top 16 out of the 47 informative speakers.

A replenished Havre team returns to competition this weekend, traveling to Fort Benton High School Saturday for its invitational tournament.