Speakers bring home honors from state tournament

Imagine a football season in which the schools were not ranked by size.

Who would bring home the honors?

The biggest schools with the biggest players would.

Illinois high school speech competitions do not differentiate the entrants by school size.

The little schools go up against the biggest schools in the state.

In this David vs. Goliath setting Harrisburg High School fared well Feb. 21 and 22 at the Peoria Civic Center. Seventy-three schools competed for state honors and the Harrisburg team brought home some recognition.

In order to make the squad headed for state, the speakers had to compete in tournaments all year. Their total scores determined whether they would advance to the state tournament.

Alexis Kuhlmann and Preston Boone won eighth place in the state for humorous duet acting. Harrisburg had sent four entrants to the state level competition. Counting the dual entry for humorous duet acting, HHS had five entries at state.

One high scoring member of the squad, Jillian Miller, had missed the qualification score for the state tournament in Peoria by only one point said assistant coach Sara DeNeal.

Teacher Tina Mondino is the head coach and Zach Hanks is also an assistant coach.

The regionals were held in Benton on Feb. 8, the sectionals at Charleston on Feb. 15.

McCartney Motsinger won third at sectionals for original comedy.

Gabriella Tison won third at sectionals for informative speaking and also a place in the top 25 speakers group for the Egyptian Forensics League.

Alexis Kuhlmann and Preston Boone placed first in sectionals and regionals and eighth in state in humorous duet acting.

Jillian Miller won a spot among the top twenty-five speakers of the Egyptian Forensics League. The EFL is a smaller, more local conference of southern schools.

The speech team has a total of 35 members from the whole school.