The speech team will compete at sectionals at Freeport High School this Saturday to hopefully qualify for state.
Speech works by starting a semi-final round, which decides whether you go to the final round, and if you are one of the top 3, then you qualify for state.
Senior Tybalt Thruman is competing in radio speaking.
“I’m competing for radio speaking, basically I have forty-five minutes to cut a script together, and then five minutes to speak a script including the news, sports, and weather for the day,” Thruman said.
Students find speech important for a lot of different reasons.
“I like how there’s pretty much a spot for everyone, and you get to meet some interesting people from across the state,” sophomore Johanna Everding said.
The team placed second overall at regionals last weekend at Sterling High School.
“I think it was a very successful weekend, not just for me but also just in general. I mean we got twelve of the fourteen events to sectionals,” junior Naomi Sdao.
The speech players are working hard to prepare themselves for sectionals.
“Meeting with coaches, running my speech a million times, reading all of my judge critiques from past tournaments, and especially from the past weekend, cracking down on my speech and getting it perfected,” junior Maddie Seal said.
The speakers hope to make it to the state competition in Peoria at the end of the month by placing top three in their event this weekend.
