Forensics: University of Akron tournament

I’m proud to report that the four of us who attended Akron’s Forensics tournament today placed third behind second place George Mason University (Virginia) and first place Clemson University (South Carolina). Interesting these two teams were at the tournament we hosted Saturday, where their results were inverted. Why the flip-flop? Well, these last few tournaments are called “last-chancers,” in which teams are trying to get “legs” to qualify for NFA and AFA Nationals.

Let me explain, within Forensics there are a few leagues which host National tournaments. BG competes at CFA and PKD Nationals. AFA and NFA Nationals are extremely expensive. IE, OSU is spending the same amount to send five people to NFA as we spent for our entire year! Adding to the expense is that events taken to AFA and NFA must qualify or “get legs” at a certain number of tournaments throughout the year. (Sort of like competing at a preliminary pageant in order to get to the state level, I guess..)

As I’ve described before, different areas of the country and leagues have different styles of Forensics competition. In reading our ballots at dinner after the tournament, we could only laugh at how much AFA schools hated us based on minor difference in opinions of how things should be done. Nevertheless, our success at this tournament prevented some of these folks from qualifying their events. That’s certainly not the reason we compete… We competed there a, because a certain number of schools have to participate so the tournament counts as a qualifier, so they needed us there and b, we are performing our events in preparation for PKD National in two weeks and finally, c, we compete because we love Forensics.

So back to explaining why George Mason won our tournament, but the next day Clemson won Akron’s, the events that qualified at our tournament no longer need to compete (just like once you win a local crown you don't compete again until Miss Ohio), so George Mason “dropped them” and had less events at Akron, thus making Clemson’s entry significantly larger. Other participants included Muskingum College, Ohio State University, the University of Akron and five others I can’t recall.

Anyway, our individual results are as follows:

Michelle Baker
Communication Analysis- First place
Persuasive Speaking- First place
Extemporaneous Speaking- Fifth place
Informative Speaking- Fourth place (I think)

Michael Hensler
Poetry Interpretation- Fifth place
Dramatic Duo Interpretation- Fourth place

Anna Adkins
Dramatic Duo Interpretation- Fourth place
Persuasive Speaking- Sixth place

Abby Bollenbacher (me)
Poetry Interpretation- Second place
Communication Analysis- Third place
Impromptu Speaking- Third place
Programmed Oral Interpretation- Fifth place

We rarely cross paths with George Mason or Clemson, but the people we met were great. Since several teams had seen each other just the day before at our tournament, the atmosphere was quite friendly. Best of luck to most of these teams as they work towards NFA and AFA. Congratulations to Mark and his crew at Akron for running a great tournament.