GREAT FALLS — Great Falls Central Catholic High School can call themselves "victorious," after their speech and debate team recently won the grand prize - the state championship title.
The Mustangs defeated Gardiner, a team that won 16 of the last 18 years. Both of those loses were to the Mustangs.
The Mustangs' speech and debate team consists of four students:
- Aiden Holden - Senior
- Helen Darlington - Sophomore
- Kylie Bickel - Senior
- Michael Faccenda - Junior
The team is led by volunteer head coach and attorney Jason Holden.
We talked with the four students to get their thoughts on their victory.
"It's a pretty big deal," said Aiden. "For Michael and Helen, I think that it's a really big deal for them because it's their first time winning. For Kylie and I, it's a pretty big deal because this is our last time debating, so we get to leave off with a pretty big bang."
Just like winning any award, there is a commitment, whether that be the preparation, or the ability to work as part of a team.
Darlington explained the amount of work and dedication it took in leading the school towards becoming state champions.
"Being such a small school and going up against these teams who not only practice every day a week, but put in so much effort, It took a lot of effort (for us). Hours of practice time and debating time was astronomical. Even when we weren't practicing, we were researching, figuring out what we were debating, who we were debating, possible scenarios that we needed to come up with. The amount of knowledge that we needed to attain to be able to accurately go into detail so that we knew what we were doing, who we were going up against and how to do it effectively. We needed research, speaking time, how to speak and be persuasive. It was a lot of work, but it really paid off in the end."
Bickel attributed the team's success to the relationships that were built over the course of the year.
"Working with my team has been great," she said. "As we are a very small team, we have gotten very close over the season. I worked with these same people from last year, from practices, team dinners, we’ve gotten very close, and I’ve had a really good time with them this year.”
Where do the Mustangs go from here? As of right now, they are going to spend some time celebrating their achievement. While they credited each other for the victory, they also mentioned how important Coach Holden is to the team, noting that it all starts with coaching.
Faccenda said this victory will give them a little extra motivation coming into next year.
Faccenda said, "With every season that we perform well, it is always an excessive motivator. Especially now that we have won the state championship, we have more pressure on ourselves to perform excessively well next year. Working with this great team has provided a lot of opportunities, and acquiring new skills has helped and should help us prepare ourselves to a high season placement next year as well.”
Questions or comments about this article? Email the reporter at cade.menter@krtv.com.
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