Spuds claim nine individual titles, place 2nd at Marshall

Post date: Jan 30, 2017 6:01:11 PM

One week after falling out of the top five to start the season, Moorhead rebounded in a big way, vaulting seven varsity and two novice speakers to the top of their respective categories, the most first place finishes in a single tournament in recent history.

Among those, Devon Solwold (Drama) and Carolyn Solberg (Great Speeches) both repeated as champions after taking top honors at last year's Marshall tournament.

Solwold earned his second first place finish with duo partner Izzy Larson, who edged out the competition for their first win of the year. Other first place speakers include seniors Megan Duchene (Ex. Reading), Sarah Schulz (Informative), McKensie Bedore (Storytelling) and Noel Kangas (Prose). Senior Jarrett Olek (Poetry) and sophomore Alex Seigel (Storytelling) took the top spots in the novice division.

Overall, the Spuds earned 447 sweepstakes points, the exact number that propelled them to a first place finish last year.

In Fergus Falls, novice speakers with veteran leaders had a successful day, earning more sweepstakes points than any other team but taking third due to the tournament's points-per-speaker ranking system.

This weekend, the Spuds return to the road as they travel to Apple Valley for the Minneapple Speech Tournament. The Spuds won the nationally-attended tournament last season and will look to repeat on Saturday. First rounds begin at 8:30 with a novice final and varsity semifinal and final taking place in the early afternoon. Awards will be streamed on our Twitter page, with out-round breaks and awards posted throughout the day. For more information, visit our Tournament Schedule/Results page.