Congratulations to the middle school speakers who competed Saturday December 8 at Clay! The 6th annual Clay Invitational featured over 350 students from 19 schools. Creekside sent Georgia Simmons who placed 1st in Prose reading with straight first places all day. Georgia alone scored enough points to place her team above three other schools! The Carmel Middle team led by first year coach Wendy Teaman scored 20 points, placing above 4 schools. Carmel scored with an 8th place finish by Maria Bashmakov in Declamation, a 6th place in Discussion from Shahyon Niese, and a 7th in Radio for Andrew Gostomelsley and a 3rd place in radio by Maria Bashmakov.
Clay Speakers won a resounding victory at their Home Meet, outscoring the other 18 schools by over 30 points.
Clay novice Noah Lichtenburg placed 10th in Radio, with Ryan Greaser in 8th. Bella Simons was 8th in Prose, and Chelsea Dai and Sophia Tragessor were 8th in Scripted Duo. Angela Sun and Anna Ding were 7th in Scripted Duo and Matt Simons was 7th in Humor.
Crystal Xue placed 4th in Congress, and Jenna Alkhatib and Taylor Fish were 4th in Memorized Duo. Corbin Baldwin was 3rd in Congress with 2 preliminary round victories. Angela Sun and Emily Worrell were 3rd place in Drama. Also 3rd were Parker Jou in Extemp, Lauren Alexander in Humor, Cindy Lee and Selena Qian and Zeba Kokan and Isabelle Miller in Memorized Duo.
Rani Hecht and Kate Hawkins were 2nd in Memorized Duo, Alexander Schrader-Dobris was 2nd in Prose, and Lauren Alexander and Ellen Clark were second in Scripted Duo. Note that there were 57 entries in Scripted Duo!
Champions for Clay were Rani Hecht in Prose, Zeba Kokan in Extemporaneous, and Jessica Ballard in Drama. And Champions with straight picket fence first places all day were Selena Qian and Alexander Schrader-Dobris in Declamation and Kate Hawkins in Humor.
Sylvia Hyde
Clay Middle School