Competition is no mocking matter, as mock trial members know. Mock trial’s first tournament of the year will take place on Sun. Dec. 18 at Miami University.
The annual Mockhawk tournament is hosted by the university’s own college mock trial team at the Farmer School of Business. It will feature 17 schools including strong local teams like former state champion Indian Hill, St. Xavier, and Mason.
“We’re woefully underprepared but we’re still going to win,” said Adam Meller, 11.
SHS has both the JV and Varsity team competing. Each team consists of two student attorneys and two witnesses for each side of the case.The group has had a third rookie team in the past but was unable to this year due to difficulty with finding professional attorneys to help coach.
The year got off to a late start with the transition of coaching leadership from Mr. Andrew Ostendorf to Mr. Andrew Oakes and working out schedules with attorneys. The JV team is led by attorney Bernie Wong and Varsity by attorney Rob Razzano. The professionals volunteer their time to help out the students, and the teams typically meet in the evenings to accommodate their schedules.
The Miami tournament is the first one for the year in the area, and serves as a testing ground to try out arguments/ideas and scope out the competition before districts in January. For many members it is their first experience in the court simulation, seeing the whole process come together.
“Miami will be tough and we will have to fight a little, but it’ll be a good learning experience. Plus we get to steal good ideas from other teams,” said Umang Joshi, 12.
This year’s case for the state of Ohio focuses on slander and politics. In it, the fictional plaintiff sues a news station that published a false story about him/her (genders are purposely kept ambiguous so that any student can play any witness) when he/she ran for governor. It may have pulled inspiration from the fake news drama of the recent presidential election.
“I’m excited. I think we have a lot of work to do, but we have the potential to do really well overall, and Miami will definitely help,” said Cali Colliver, 12.