By Kyle Brown
The Speech Team packed its bags as they sent four students, juniors Jacquelyn Dunderdale and Connor Fitzgerald and seniors Maddy Spacapan and Lauren Matthews, down for the annual state tournament in Peoria on Friday, Feb. 18.

The team took 10th in state in the two-day tournament with only three finalist performances. Dunderdale and Fitzgerald were state runners-up in Humorous Duet Acting while Spacapan placed third for Oratorical Declamation and Matthews finished fifth in Poetry Reading.
Placing in the top 10 is no easy feat, especially two years in a row with a seventh place finish last year, which was the team’s best performance, according to coach Jeremy Morton.

“Any time you can finish in [the] top 10 in any event, it’s a successful year,” coach Jonathon Kaminsky said.
This impressive finish for Speech Team is due in great part to the time commitment put in by the students to prepare themselves for state.
According to Fitzgerald, he would spend three to four hours after school every day practicing his script with his partner, Dunderdale.
“[Speech Team] is not a little thing,” Fitzgerald said. “Like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll show up sometimes, especially near the end of it.’ It was every day — lots of time.”
Morton said that some students have been practicing their scripts since November.
“[It’s a] huge commitment for the pieces, and they’re eight-minute pieces, so you can only work so long in eight minutes.”
Morton said that memorization and practicing facial expressions are not the only commitments required for performing one’s scripts.
“We attempt to be true to the words,” Morton said. “We are honest in our characters and the way we play our characters.”