Mock Trial Team Places Second at Region Competition, Moves on to District

Members of the mock trial team, along with attorney coach Chris Howard.

Thomas Washburn

Members of the mock trial team, along with attorney coach Chris Howard.

Libby Jones, Managing Editor

On Saturday, the Cambridge Mock Trial team placed second at the Georgia Mock Trial region competition, qualifying for the district competition.

Last year, the team narrowly missed the qualification.

“I’m extremely proud of how well we performed,” said junior Cheney Dunwoodie, a defense witness on the team.

Dunwoodie said that while the team could technically have scored better, there were a lot of good individual performances.

Senior Ayush Kumar, president of the Mock Trial team and a closing attorney, also said he was confident in the team’s performance.

“Sitting in the courtroom, I thought we had won all three ballots,” Kumar said, referring to the three jurors’ scores for the team.

The team now has two weeks to prepare for the district competition Feb. 23.

“We’re just going to keep working, revising our strategies and changing the way our witnesses work,” said Kumar.

Dunwoodie said the team will focus on the judges’ comments to hone their performance.

“We’re definitely looking over our score sheets and looking over strategies we think are more sophisticated,” she said.

Although they didn’t place first, many team members said they were happy to make it to districts after falling short last year.

Sophomore Shir Halfon, a plaintiff attorney on the team, said she thinks the team as a whole has performed better than last year, but the district competition will be the best way for the team to find out how much they’ve improved.

The team competed in the Marietta region this year, while they were in the Cumming region last year, so districts will be their chance to compete against some of the teams that challenged them last year.

If the team places first at the district competition, they will move on to state.

Dunwoodie said she was sad she won’t be able to be at the district competition, but said she is optimistic about how her teammates will do.

“I firmly believe in my team’s ability to do well and kick booty,” said Dunwoodie.