The Close of Another Mock Trial Season 2017-2018
February 13, 2018
The NPHS Mock Trial’s season has officially come to a close after a close loss at the playoffs. Sophomore Nicholas Barrow, part of the lead counsel on the team, describes the season in detail.
Though the team consists of too many kids to name, the members who participated in the trial this year are as follows:
- Nicholas Barrow, Satrina Shannon, and Victoria Winter, as the lead counsel
- Jakob Lussier, Adrianna Houde, and Chris Loranger as the witnesses
Barrow also credits the team’s coach, Ms. Bozigian, who is “supportive and there to help us every step of the way”, as well as other students who help behind the scenes to develop case theory.
This season, the team won one trial and lost four. “Our first trial we tied, but lost on a technicality. After a failed appeal, we coined it as, “A miscarriage of Mock Justice.” The second trial we won against the raining state champions, and the third we lost by several points. Then in playoffs, we were eliminated in round 1 by 0.5 pts,” explains Barrow.
As for how playoffs were expected to turn out, the team was a little unconfident. They knew it would be a tough match so they settled on a “crazy, unthought of, and quite frankly, ‘hail mary’ type of argument.” Though this was risky the team considered it their only shot at winning.
Though they playoffs ended their season, the loss was not a unanimous vote by the judges. According to Barrow, “Judge Newman presided over the trial and scored us as winning. He believed we should have won it, while the other two scorers had us losing by 1.5 pts and 0.5 pts respectively. After receiving score sheets, there were discrepancies amongst the judges, some loving our witness performances, some hating them; some loved our lawyer’s questions and statements – some not so much.”
On a positive note, Barrow regards the case as one of the best they’ve ever argued and the most fun they’ve ever had.
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