Milbank Does Well In Northern South Dakota NFL District Qualifying Tournament

"Although no Milbank High School speakers qualified for the national tournament, they did have some outstanding results at the Northern South Dakota NFL District Qualifying tournament held in Brookings February 26-27th. We have a young squad and many have been competing in novice divisions during the season. They had to step it up and hit the ranks of varsity at this contest" noted head coach Douglas Tschetter. Tschetter is assisted by Ron Frauenshuh.

Sophomores John Ward and Timothy Whelan advanced through six rounds of public forum debate. They are an alternate for the national tournament with their placing out of the 31 teams who entered the division. "They really had a great contest. It was fun to see their excitement as they continued through the competition over the two days."

Jesse Nelson, another MHS sophomore, sparkled in the largest individual event contest, US Extemp. "He advanced to the semi-final round before narrowly being eliminated. The category is really tough on the varsity level this year and Jesse hasn't had a lot of experience in extemp, but he has a lot of knowledge. He competed well with the rest of the competition."

Other entries and the number of rounds advanced included: Policy debate--Amanda Lambrechts and Natasha Hartman (2); Lincoln/Douglas debate--Josh Grabow (3), Jesse Nelson (2); Public Forum Debate--Brent Seehafer and Brenna Rausch (3), Camilla Oedling and Nathaniel Steinlicht (4), Mitchell Wagner and Katie Loutsch (4); Original Oratory--Amanda Lambrechts (3), Rachel Johannsen (2); Dramatic Interp--Brent Seehafer (3), Natasha Hartman (2), Humorous Interp--Jeremy DeVaal (2); International Extemp--Josh Grabow (2), Allwin McDonald (2), Nathaniel Steinlicht (2), Katie Loutsch (2); and US Extemp--Mitchell Wagner (3), Tim Whelan (3), and John Ward (2).

This next weekend will conclude the debate and individual events portion of the forensic season as the State Contest will be held in Watertown. "Hopefully, we can have some students step up and perform well again and be among the top finishers at the contest. The state is looking to hire some 'Watertown area judges' for the public forum debate division. The competition is designed to be judged by lay people. There is a brief training session on Saturday morning before the competition starts. If anyone is available and interested to serve Saturday morning from 8:45 until about 1, please contact me at the school," commented Tschetter.