St. Michael-Albertville High Hosts Speech Standouts

The halls of St. Michael-Albertville High School are usually quiet on the weekends. This past Saturday all that changed. Over 500 students, coaches, and fans packed classrooms, commons, and corridors for the largest-ever St. Michael-Albertville High School Speech Invitational. The home team defended their court with 14 placewinners and several honorable mentions. Earning top overall team honors from 19 registered schools was the squad from Park Cottage Grove High School.

“Thanks to everyone who made this possible,” said coach Mike Frickstad. “This meet is a success because we have great support from school administration and teachers, Adam in the auditorium, parents volunteering their time, visiting coaches helping in the tab room, and great students competing.”

Winner their divisions at home were Jed Rothstein in extemporaneous speaking and Isaac Heieie in impromptu. Runner up awards went to Mike Papas in impromptu and Heieie again in his regular event of Prose. Jed Rothstein also placed third with his informative and fifth in impromptu. Fourth place in informative went to Jake Tambornino. Earning fifth place honors were Gabrielle Thompson in Great Speeches and Cody Goodchild in informative.

Placing sixth was Erika Duley in Original Oratory, along with the duo of Alex Brown and Leah Odegard. Brown also earned sixth place honors in humorous and impromptu. Along with top six finishers, several speakers were very close to advancing and as such earned honorable mention: Zac Tambornino in humorous; Christine Lenneman & Mallory Schneider in duo;  Mike Papas in humorous;  and Marissa Stifter in storytelling.

Unique to the meet this year was the addition of impromptu as a 14^th category.  The students had to draw three prompts at random and choose one to perform. Each round had a theme of expressions, situations, or objects that competitors had to ad libitum into a five minute speech.  “Impromptu forces speakers to think on their feet and be creative in delivery, which are things that make them better in their regular events,” said coach Mike Worcester. “Plus it is a lot of fun to watch.”

Heieie has been with the speech team since his eight grade year. Now a senior, he hopes to parlay good experiences with impromptu and prose into being ready for NFL district competition in Grand Rapids this March.

“My goal is to qualify for nationals this year,” said Heieie. “It would be awesome.”

Jed Rothstein and Alex Brown accomplished the rare feat of triple finaling, or making the final round in all three events in which they competed. Brown, a senior, competed in Humorous, Impromptu, and Duo. “To be completely honest I was totally blown away,” said Brown after the meet. “When I saw my name keep showing up on the postings it was just the craziest of feelings! I had to get to the classrooms and coordinate with the judges.”

Leah Odegard partnered with Brown for duo. “I wanted to help him out because his regular partner was gone,” she said. “I couldn’t wait to perform, but he (Brown) had triple finaled so I went with him to those rounds first.”  Their event would be last. “I did get a bit nervous performing for a room packed with people, since the last time I finaled nobody was there. As we got into it though, we got the crowd laughing. I even had a guy come up after and say that was the best duo he's seen. It definitely made my day!”

Nineteen schools attended the meet from as far west as Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa and Melrose to schools a bit closer such as Maple Grove and Rockford. Among them were some of the best competition in Section 5AA and the National Forensic League Northern Lights District.  Team awards were tabulated using the score from each school’s best competitor in each category, plus bonus points for finalists. Winning the title was Park Cottage Grove with a close second to Mounds View. In third place was Maple Grove. 

In addition to the home team the full list of attending schools was as follows: Anoka, BBE, Becker, Cambridge-Isanti, Champlin Park, Columbia Heights, DeLaSalle, Maple Grove, Melrose, Mounds View, Park Cottage Grove, Princeton, Rockford, Sauk Rapids Rice, St. Cloud Cathedral, St. Louis Park, Totino Grace, and Mound Westonka.

St. Buffaville will be back on the road competing at Willmar in a midweek sojourn out Highway 12 on Tuesday afternoon before facing tough section competition at the Centennial High School meet Saturday the 25th.

Looking back on a successful home meet, Frickstad could not help but reflect on the growth of the team over the years. “In 2001, we had six people on the team. Now we have nearly 50,” he said. “Pretty soon we’re gonna need a bigger bus.”