Forensics team regional champs

By Chris Ledermuller
Daily Forty-Niner

Cal State Long Beach's forensics team won its second consecutive championship at the Pacific Southwest Collegiate Forensic Association's fall regional championship, held on campus over the weekend.

"We kicked some... we won!" said forensics director Matthew Taylor, stopping from saying which exact body part the CSULB team kicked. "Needless to say, I am incredibly happy."

CSULB won the first place sweepstakes trophy for four-year universities with 152 points. Other Southern California competitors included Cal State Northridge, Cal State Los Angeles, UCLA, USC, the Claremont Colleges and Biola University.

Each time a school wins an award, they accumulate sweepstakes points, Taylor said.

Sweepstakes prizes have separate awards for two- and four-year campuses, but participants compete on three levels of experience, which are novice, junior and senior, and students from two-year colleges compete with four-year schools.

The CSULB forensics team gave much praise for the efforts of Taylor and the other coaches.

"Matt Taylor is the reason why we are doing these," said a hoarse Andraya Carson, lauding him for "his coaching, his enthusiasm and his confidence in us."

Carson spoke so much over the weekend that she lost her voice.

Despite losing her voice, Carson still took home three trophies in senior-level competition. She won fourth place for prose, and fifth place for poetry and duo with partner Ty Andrews. Along with partner Chris Gail, she was a semi-finalist in parliamentary debate, losing out to USC.

Along with several trophies given to finalists, big winners included David Escobedo, who earned first place in senior-level prose and junior-level duo interpretation with partner Tiffany Potter; Brian Norcross, who won first place in junior-level extemporaneous speaking; and Roxanne Eclevia, who won the top prize for junior-level program oral interpretation.

Heidi Ramer and Eric Maag won first and second place in policy debate, a thoroughly researched presentation focusing on a single topic across several contests. As a team, they captured first place.

Audrey Mink won two second-place junior-level awards in impromptu and persuasion speaking, and Lara Worm won second place in novice-level dramatic interpretation.

Mark Dorrough won two third-place trophies for senior-level prose and persuasion, and he was a co-finalist in parliamentary debate with Brian Norcross. Chris Wright earned third place for analytical speaking, while Joe DeSantis earned a third-place award in novice impromptu speaking.

The CSULB team members said the demands placed on them at the speaking events are very challenging.

"We read the newspapers and magazines. We have to know everything about everything," said Chris Gail, who competed in senior-level impromptu, extemporaneous and parliamentary debates.

In order to succeed, Gail said, "you have to be a combination of Al Gore and George W. Bush. You have the information [of Gore] as well as persuasive speaking [of Bush]."

Gail's teammate, senior-level speaker Matt Davidson, said technique is too simplistic.

"They [Gore and Bush] have to use the two methods, but we have to do more," he said. "It's unlike anything in real life. It's not courtroom antics. It's not a presidential debate. We're not as constrained as they are."

But Davidson mentioned that the stakes are different since participants are being judged.

"Judges are college students and professors," said forensics director Taylor. "They're judging them [the competitors] on the quality of research, critical thinking, logic, style and presentation"