At a recent competition, the Bowie forensics team won another sweepstakes with top honors for the third time in a row.

Bowie forensics also earned the first place squad efficiency, and took all six top places for the duo interpretation team acting event for the fourth tournament in a row. The team has also qualified five of its competitors for the Texas Forensics Association (TFA) State tournament in March.

The TFA State qualifications have gone to Caleb Newton for Congress and Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking; Carter Drost for Humorous Interpretation; Jacob Blacklock and Luke Evans for Duet Acting; and Emma Lopez for Original Oratory.

In the duo interpretation event, Bowie forensics took the first six places. Jake Anderson and Grace Widner landed 1st place, Drost and Eli Schoolar took 2nd place, Avery Helder and Jamie Muras took 3rd place, Fisher and Megan Russell were in 4th place, Natalie Guerra and Sofia Hutton were in 5th place, and Tasha Anslyn and Anna Seningen finished with 6th place.

The forensics team came very close to taking all seven places in the duet acting event, however the only place they did not take was third place; Reed Syzdek and Widner took 1st place, Blacklock and Evans took 2nd place, Hunter Francisco and Hutton took 4th place, Anslyn and Helder took 5th place, Muras and Schoolar took 6th place, and Fisher and Guerra took 7th place.

Other final results were from the humorous interpretation event, where Schoolar took 1st place, Drost took 2nd place, and Jack Brady took 6th place. Congress had Newton for 1st place, Zach Houdek for 2nd place, and Lauren Warhol was a finalist. Hutton had taken 1st place for her poetry interpretation.

Newton spoke about the things he did to prepare for the competition, and what else helped him as the competition grew closer.

“I practiced like every single night, we have debate club every Monday, that’s all I ever do,” Newton said. “Also teaching them, I get better and when I help out other people rather than just me acting individually so that’s always fun, helping other people, rather than helping myself.”

In the US extemp competition Lopez took 2nd place, Houdek took 6th place, and Gillian Sitler took 8th place. Newton had taken 2nd place, with Jimmy Counihan in 4th place in the FX competition. For the Prose interpretation competition, Guerra was in 3rd place, while Anderson was in 4th, and Francisco in 5th place.

Though their 3rd top honors in sweepstakes is consecutive, Marco Bazan, the forensics and UIL academic director, believes that winning team sweepstakes isn’t the focus.

“The focus is that each student does their best and leaves the tournament feeling accomplished and that they are improving as debaters, performers or public speakers,” Bazan said. “If we happen to also win team sweepstakes, that’s just a little something extra to feel proud about.”

In the dramatic interpretation category, Hutton took 4th place. In the original oratory event, Lopez took 4th place, also becoming a qualifier for the TFA State competition. The final results for the novice public forum debate had Joe Bridges and Jace Brown take 2nd place; however in the novice Lincoln-Douglas debate, Rasheek Huq was both a semi-finalist, and the one who took the 2nd place speaker spot. In the novice extemporaneous speaking event, Alexus Harris took 4th place.

Bazan thinks of the TFA State competition with realistic standards, uncertain of what the results will be.

“TFA State is in March, so it’s hard to say how our students will do,” Bazan said. “We are just proud that they keep working each week to be successful and become stronger competitors.”