R-MA Takes Perfect Card at WACFL Speech 1

Setting our goal to post a Perfect Season, the R-MA Speech and Debate Team has completed its final October League Tournament with a perfect Card. This means that R-MA is 3-0 in regular season play -- undefeated in NoVaFL, ShenVaFL, and WACFL.

The Friday night before the tournament, we continued the Friday Practice and Nerditorium Exercise. Working with John Holsinger on his Declamation with the Ducks of Displeasure, we polished his piece to a good hue of confidence and poise. Additionally, Brennan Morris was able to give three exemplar Extemp speeches. While this was going on, the Nerditorium was ambling aimlessly toward developing Role Playing Characters in the Lecture Room... mostly listening to really poor Country music while Ryan rolled around in a wheelchair (not mine -- somehow we have picked up an extra). At the end of the Friday Night Practice, the Nerds had not been able to fully develop their virtual characters while John and Brennan were virtually charactersitically hard-working and driven.

Waking up at 5 in the morning, I had time to compose a cup of espresso before John is dropped off to pack the laptop and help me get the Debate Bus up and rolling to power up the hill to pick up virtually all the speechers. All, with the exception of one, were ready to roll. The exception had developed a mysterious Saturday morning illness that miraculously had cleared up a few hours later for the Asian Outing.

But the indominatable Speechers were able to roll down the hill by 0605 for our Traditional McDonalds Breakfast on the road to Broad Run and WACFL Speech 1.

Now, I love Tom Tom (or, Mr. Tom, as he is known with respect) and he has taken us without a hitch to many a tournament. But when you ask Mr. Tom to avoid a $2 toll road, he will take you through every unmarked and uninhabited road to get to your destination. But get us to Broad Run, Mr. Tom did, and we rolled into the Broad Run parking lot exactly at 0801 to get to the Registration Table and set up Extemp.

During the WACFL Speech Tournament, Broad Run ran its annual Spartan Invitational and I was drafted, while running Extemp Prep, into tabbing the Student Congress Tournament while still pumping out Extempers for their draw and rooms.

The Tournament was fairly uneventful, except for the John Holsinger Comedy Show in Extemp Prep and Ryan getting to use his Cthulu AGD in Extemp (perhaps the last time he will be running in this event), and we got to Awards on time. R-MA was able to place, gain a Metro Qualifier, or Ace in every event in which we entered:

2nd Oral Interp: Ryan Black
3rd Impromptu: Brennan Morris
4th Declamation: John Christoph
4th Oratory: John Holsinger
AQ Declamation: John Holsinger
AQ Extemp: Brennan Morris
Metro Qualifier Extemp: Will Dungan

We needed four Aces (top third of the event) to gain a Perfect Card. We came away with nearly twice that many and placed more than any other school in the Arlington Diocese. This is a great Novice Team! By way of contrast, at the first WACFL Speech last year, we only gained 3 Aces and that dogged us all the way through the season... giving us only 2nd in Speech for the Season... and breaking our 7-year Champion Streak last year. This year, we are loaded for Bear.

As way of celebration, we all had dinner at Don Pablo's homogenous TexMexican Restaurant and reviewed ballots and celebrated Stephen Maddock's unBirthday and marked his meeting quotas for term life insurance policies.

Great thanks to Lauren Burt (Assistant Coach), Tabi Allen (Most Faithful Alumna), Mr. Pratt (president of the FGLDS Booster Society), and Mr. Maddock Sr. -- coming all the way from Washington State to judge.

Our next WACFL Tournament is Saturday, 8 November.