Competition Club Finales

By: Johanna Mathieu

So there's still almost more than a month left of school and most of us can't wait until either June 9th or some other day around the middle of June… whatever that day may be. Yet many competition clubs have already showcased their senior send-offs and gone on their last 5-hour road trip for the year. In fact, March and April were jam-packed with final competitions, state tournaments, and lots and lots of awards for LHS students. Here's an overview of some of those season-enders.

The Debate / Speech / Student Congress Teams:

With 5 national qualifiers, the debate team is looking toward to national competitions to round out the year. After making a wonderful showing at the State Debate Competition (see the last issue of the Blue Blaze), the teams traveled to the Catholic Forensic League Qualifying Competition where half the team qualified to go to Rochester, New York for CFL Nationals. Mae Tobin-Hochstadt qualified, placing first over all in Lincoln-Douglass Debate while Aaron Strong became an alternate. Paul Brunetti qualified for NCFL Student Congress and Johanna Mathieu became an alternate. Both Faraneh Carnegie and Laura Damon qualified in separate speech events. Later at the National Forensic League Qualifying Competition Aaron Strong qualified in Lincoln-Douglass Debate and will travel to Portland, Oregon this spring to compete. In most of the events only 2 people in the entire state of Maine qualify to go to nationals!

Odyssey of the Mind (a.k.a. Destination Imagination)

This year, LHS entered 3 different teams into the regional Destination Imagination Competition, an alternative to Odyssey of the Mind, in which the majority of the state's teams participated. The Roller Coaster Team placed 1st in improvisation but 3rd overall in their competition missing 2nd place and a chance to qualify for states by less than 2 points of 400. However, the Music Team placed 2nd and went to states on April 1st where they placed 2nd overall.

Math Team

The last regular math meet of the year was held at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School on March 8th. At this meet, team and individual season awards were given out and Lewiston took home not only the 3rd place award in the large schools division but also 2 individual awards. Corey Potvin received the award of 4th place senior and Andrew Morin took home the award of 4th place junior. On April 6th the Math Team traveled to the Cumberland County Civic Center to compete in the Maine State Math Meet with over 1000 other students from just about every high school in Maine. The competition was fierce and the team did not take home any awards but they did score in the upper half of the competition.