Stars of the Southwest Championships

This weekend MHS4N6 competed at its first regional, more national style tournament of the season. The Southwestern Championships (hosted by Arizona State University) were attended by 43 schools from 6 different states. Despite the new competition, the results didn't change much for Mesquite; it was simply another day at the office. This tournament also came with an added perk and incentive to many, highly coveted Tournament of Champions bids, and NIETOC (Individual Event TOC) bids.

As is now the established norm, MHS Congress didn't mind the additional competition or the unusual format of sessions as Eric Liang and Michael Ippolito were both

finalists and placed in the top 16. However, MHS did receive its first ever TOC debate bid as Michael Ippoltio took 3rd overall in Congress and got his first bid to the annual national tournament. MHS is attending one more qualifying tournament at Harvard where another bid can be gained.

Mesquite also sent two Public Forum teams to compete at ASU and both continued their amazingly successful seasons. The team of Eric Liang and Mitchell Dyer broke to Double Octafinals (top 32) and Dyer received an award for the 8th best speaker out of the 100+ individuals in public forum. The team of Gina Mo and Sona Shahbazian made Octofinals (top 16) and were one victory short of their TOC bid. In addition, Gina Mo also received an award for the 4th best overall speaker in public forum.

The speech team of MHS Speech and Debate needs further recognition as

this was arguably their best collective performance of the year. Alexa Curran

continued her dominance and cruised to her fourth consecutive 1st place finish in Dramatic Interpretation. Alexa Curran obtained her 2nd bid to NIETOC in San Francisco. Better than one first place finish is two, and Curran followed her phenomenal DI performance with a first place finish in Prose Interpretation. Mollie Moreno also had her first final of the season and took 5th in Prose. Prose was not the only speech event where Mesquite had multiple finalists.

MHS Extemp placed a record three competitors in finals.

Nicole Fisher, Michael Ippolito, and first time finalist Katherine

Wu all were among the Top 6 extempers earning bids to the Extemp Tournament of Champions at Northwestern in May. Success doesn't end with extemp; in the realm of Expository Speaking, Gabby Luu finaled for the second time in her rookie season and took 2nd overall. Kevin Tian also continued to dominate the metaphorical airwaves finishing 5th overall in Radio Broadcasting. Finally, in impromptu, Nicole Fisher took 2nd overall and Michael Ippolito took 4th overall, capping another successful tournament.

Despite only sending 13 students to compete, with less than 30 entries, MHS was among the top of the sweepstakes point total and in a dead heat race for a Top 5 placing. Regardless, this guaranteed top 8 finish shows that the quality of MHS4N6 can triumph over the quantity of others. Looking ahead, some members of Mesquite will be competing next weekend at Valley Christian, while the majority of the team prepares for the Central Bobcat Bonanza on February 3-4.

Rampaging at Red Mountain

This past weekend at the Lost Dutchman Invitation at Red Mountain High School, MHS4N6 started off 2012 right where they left off in 2011: a string of dominance.

Mesquite's success began early Friday with Congressional Debate as two Wildcats won their individual houses. Both Eric Liang and Michael Ippolito took first in their respective houses; for Eric, it is his second consecutive win in Congress as he builds a massive amount of momentum for ASU and this was Michael's first Congress win. Nicole Fisher continued her successful consistency and finished 3rd bringing home some hardware as

well.

In speech and interpretation events Alexa Curran continued her reign as the best Dramatic Interper on the Arizona circuit taking first in Dramatic Interp for the 3rd tournament in a row. Alexa also finished 3rd in prose, marking her 3rd top 3 finish in a row. Taylor Rae Humbert also broke in Dramatic Interp along with Amalia Moreno capping another strong showing by MHS Interp. Amalia was also a semi-finalist in Prose, making this tournament a double break for her. MHS Extemp continued it's success with Nicole Fisher and Eric Liang making semi-finals as well. Kevin Tian placed for the second consecutive time in Radio Broadcasting taking 4th overall and was a semi-finalist in lower impromptu, marking his second tournament in a row with double breaking.

In the always expanding world of NFL ranks, points, and degrees, all of which are necessary for MHS4N6 to compete at National Qualifer tournaments, Red Mountain proved to be a nice milestone setting event. Michael Ippolito eclipsed 1000 points and earned a degree of Outstanding Distinction. Nicole Fished eclipsed 750 points and earned her degree of Superior Distinction . Mollie Moreno and Cynthia Tran also earned their Degrees of Honor. Mesquite gets to enjoy a week off before preparing to compete at the Arizona State University Tournament in two weeks, which will be the largest tournament of the year thus far with Tournament of Champions bids up for grabs.