In the blink of an eye, Mock Trial Regionals arrived. City High’s five teams walked into the Coralville Hyatt hotel, the location of the regional, ready to compete. Making up five out of the ten teams competing at the regional competition, Mock Trial has been training for this moment over the past few months.

“Today was not exceptionally challenging for our team. I think it was a good way to warm up to competing against other teams,” Liam Clarke ‘22, a member of Mock Trial, said. “We’ve mainly been scrimmaging ourselves and other City teams, so scrimmaging someone new with a new case theory was refreshing.”

At around 6 p.m. the night of regionals, the results were released. City High is officially sending three of its mock trial teams to the Mock Trial State competition next week. While the teams celebrated their accomplishment from the day, they immediately discussed their plans to prepare for the state competition.

“We’ve done a nice job preparing, especially with a lot more new students in the program this year than we’ve ever had,” Mock Trial Coach, Jason Schumann said.

The nationally-ranked team is taking on a new challenge this year, training many new students. Mock Trial has upcoming sophomores competing, who are excited to be on stage for the first time.

“I enjoy doing [mock trial], the people that do it are really cool. It’ll be fun and a good way to test what we’ve been working on,” Ben Platt ‘24 says.

Along with the newer students to Mock Trial, more experienced members are excited to demonstrate skills they have learned over the past couple of seasons.

“I’ve definitely improved my public speaking. I’ve gained a lot more confidence in that, and I’ve been able to work with peers better and be able to work well under pressure,” Jennie Gidal ‘23 said.

Overall, all are excited to have had the opportunity to compete, even in what can be a stressful environment.

“State is in a week which is kind of overwhelming because last year we had a lot more time to prepare,” Clarke says. “So it’s coming up fast, but this weekend we will go over our parts again, refurbish anything, and we’re going to get comments back from judges to see what worked and what didn’t work.”

Although State is just around the corner and the teams recognize the amount of work they have to do before then, the teammates get to celebrate their accomplishments over the past months and their ticket to State.

“I was proud and happy that it all came together,” Clarke states. “Everything that we’ve been practicing, all the trials, it’s really satisfying to see everything click like a puzzle. Just everyone coming together, working for one common goal, and then succeeding ultimately.”