This Saturday, the Mock Trial team is pulling double duty. On March 4th, they are both hosting and competing in the first ever regional competition in Iowa City.

“Since we’re hosting our own competition this year, all the witnesses and all the lawyers are going to have to be on their game,” said Gabby McCormick ‘18, one of the two co-presidents of the club. “I’m feeling really excited right now. We’re at a good place.”

Chip Hardesty, one of the club’s three coaches along with Jason Schumann and Lisa Williams, a US attorney, feels the same.

“I’m looking forward to the competition,” Hardesty said. “We had a team that qualified for state last year for the first time and I’m pretty confidant that one if not both our teams will qualify this year.”

McCormick agreed.

“The potential to go to state and do well is definitely there,” she said. “We’re going to have to be fresh and cohesive.”

The team has been putting in extra work this year, beginning practice in September instead of December as they have in years past. That work seems to be paying off.

“This year has been good both for the students and for the coaches,” Hardesty said. “Every year we’re learning the nuances between the rules of mock trial and the so-called regular trials.”

From McCormick’s perspective, the season has also been going well.

“We’re more prepared than last year. We’re coming up on the last stride of the season we’re not super stressed out,” she said. “There has been some team on team stress, but we’ve been taking strides to kind of eliminate that. There are a lot of competitive people, but everybody has the same goal.”

Overall, both Hardesty and McCormick are hopeful for the outcome of the season.

“We want to do considerably better than last year,” Hardesty said. “We’re capable of placing at the state competition.”