The Manhattan High forensics team has had a strong start to their season with Saturday tournaments every weekend strengthening the team’s skills.

“We’ve been doing very well,” junior Ashlyn Dobson said. “We’ve been getting top places at every tournament and all of our novices have been doing really well this season.”

Forensics is a track-like second semester speaking activity with many different speaking, informative, story-telling and debate events that each student can choose freely from. There truly is an event for everyone, which makes forensics a very inclusive activity.

“The people there are very welcoming and kind and funny,” Dobson said. “There is no negativity there and it is really nice.”

The team had a very successful start to their season at Washburn Rural High School.

“At Washburn every single [Manhattan] competitor took a medal,” junior Jamen Trojcak said. “We got first place in the Sweepstakes. We saw a lot of new people competing and a lot of people working on their pieces a lot more.”

Each competitor is instructed to create, learn, and act out a piece that is important to them.

“My poetry piece opens up about insecurities and body standards in society and how they are pushed on people, like the plastic surgery epidemic and how that has just been affecting people,” freshman Hannah Uher said.

The team has started off the year busy with tournaments every weekend, starting off with a tournament at Shawnee Heights on Jan. 26 and 27, in Lawrence on Feb. 2 and 3, Seaman on Feb. 9 and 10, Washburn Rural on Feb. 16 and 17, and Shawnee Mission East on Feb. 23 and 24, with their next tournament being Olathe North West this coming weekend.

“With my poetry piece I have been able to really experiment with blocking in forensics and it has been a really big learning experience for me and just becoming a better speaker,” Dobson said.

Some forensic students have had years of experience, but with the forensics team growing, there have been many successful “novice” competitors as well.

“It is a lot harder than I thought it would be but it is a really good learning experience,” Uher, winner of the junior varsity poetry division at Washburn Rural, said. “I was really surprised [to win], but it was still really cool to win.”

The team has begun to prepare for their big home tournament the weekend of March 8 and 9, with their sights being set on the State Tournament after that.

“When it comes to the team, it has been three years with a lot of these guys and we’ve seen some people come and go and I think one of the most interesting parts has been seeing how the novices from last year are going now and noticing how they have come into their own and been really successful,” Trojcak said. “I think it is going to be really interesting, especially next year, to see how the team goes. I think we’ve got a lot of rising stars.”

If you are 18 and older and would be interested in helping out the forensics team by judging the home tournament, let teacher Mac Phrommany know.