On Thursday, April 10, the OHS Speech Team had sections in Northfield. They got fourth as a team in the meet.
At the end of the section meet, Owatonna had four state qualifiers: Heather Walker, Noelle Kubicek, Vitaly Bauer and Ayoub Farah. Walker is in extemporaneous speaking, Kubicek is in informative speaking, Bauer is in humorous interpretation and Farah is in discussion.
Farah said, “Sections is a very important meet, very competitive, so I was a little nervous but I felt excited.” Discussion focused on debates about the work force this season.
Farah continued, “I’m proud of my performance. I was surprised by the results, but I was proud of my results. There’s some gaps I’ll need to fill before state and we’re missing some key seniors, but what we have with our younger team, I think we did pretty amazing.” A speech that blew him away was an Informative speech from Owatonna’s Max Goettl on intergalactic warfare.
The speech coaches play a key role in guiding the speech members to their success. Speech coach Ms. Anderson said, “I thought it was good. I was a little worried at first. With spring break being right before sections, I was wondering if people would actually practice… I think the muscle memory of all the hard work they had put in before spring break really paid off and so they performed well.”
The speech team had 12 out of 28 entries make it to finals. Ms. Anderson said, “We had a bunch get fourth place which was one away from making it to state, and we had a whole bunch get eighth which is one away from making finals.” Ms. Anderson also shared her favorite thing from sections was seeing the excitement on the bus and the excitement of realizing it was a big meet. She was excited to see her speakers channel their stress and use it to help their performance.
The four Owatonna state speech qualifiers will compete on April 26 at Shakopee High School. The speech team is excited to see what they can be able to accomplish at state.
