Forensic Falcons Champion Events at Pioneer Trails

The Southeastern Illinois College Forensic Falcons co-hosted the 41^st Annual Pioneer Trails Open Tournament with Casper College of Wyoming this last weekend on Feb. 11.  The event is one of the few virtual tournaments SIC competes in and featured competitors from colleges and universities from Illinois, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Virginia, Alabama, and California. Since hosting, SIC was unable to receive a team award, but that didn’t stop SIC’s team from taking top honors in several individual events. Additionally, two of SIC’s competitive actors, Bailey Warner (Marion) and Collin Garnett (Marion), participated in Dramatic Interpretation at the competition.

First-year competitor Neva Wasson earned two individual championships after advancing all four of her events to final rounds, and was the top speaker at the tournament. Sophomore Trey Murphy was the 4^th overall speaker, and was named champion in Informative Speaking.

“I think the tournament went incredibly well!” said Murphy. “The tournament ran smoothly and our peers did an excellent job!”

Coach Rachel Parish agrees. She explains, “This weekend was definitely a team effort, and has me very excited to see them building their events even further this spring towards nationals.”

Each competition builds to the 2023 Phi Rho Pi National Tournament in Bethesda, Maryland.  The team is coached by Jenny Billman, Paul Cummins, and Rachel Parish.

Individual results from the tournament are as follows.

Neva Wasson (Harrisburg): tournament champion in Dramatic Interpretation, tournament champion in Poetry, 2^nd place in Duo Interpretation (with partner Connor Fauset), 2nd place in Speech to Entertain.

Layton Glover (Equality): 4th place in Informative Speaking.

Trey Murphy (Benton): tournament champion in Informative Speaking, 3^rd place in Prose Interpretation, 3^rd place in Program Oral Interpretation, 5^th Place in Poetry.

Connor Fauset (Benton): 2^nd place in Duo Interpretation (with Wasson), 2^nd place in Dramatic Interpretation, 2^nd place in Prose Interpretation, 6^th place in Poetry.

Ethan Bordoy (Harrisburg): 5^th place in Informative Speaking.

Jenkin Naas (Harrisburg): 5^th place in Communication Analysis.

###