PHS Speech
Pierce Places Second Battle Creek Invitational
by Haiden Magnussen
The Pierce High speech team traveled to Battle Creek on Saturday, February 18, and the team competed alongside 11 other schools where Pierce placed second, only dropping to Boone Central. The competition included both a JV and varsity division. Both divisions had finals with JV placing 1st-6th and varsity placing 1st-12th.
For varsity medalists beginning with humorous prose, Alyssa Cederburg placed second with Kaila Spieker following behind at eighth.
In program of oral interpretation Zaylah Pfanstiel placed third.
Poetry had Pfanstiel placing 6th and Madison Altwine placing ninth.
Duet acting saw Spieker and Dalton Svoboda placing fourth with Nikolas Harvey and Brielle Unseld directly behind them at fifth. Payton Cederburg and Ashley Wacker would trail the two duos placing 10th.
Emma Risinger started off the scoring in persuasive speaking placing third. Keli Shermer would go on to place eighth in this event.
Risinger also competed in extemporaneous speaking, placing third.
In serious prose, Mya Johnson and Wacker placed eighth and 12th, respectively.
Informative speaking would be capitalized by Unseld placing second and Haiden Magnussen placing 12th.
Entertainment had four medalists beginning with Svoboda in second, Noah Jones in sixth, Bode Hoffmann in ninth and Ciara Garcia in 10th.
Hoffmann speaks on the day saying, “I feel like I definitely could have done better, but there was some tough competition. We were able to see a lot of teams that we will be up against at districts, so it was good to see how we match up to them. Our team will be hard at work everyday sharpening and honing in on our skills so that we have the best opportunity to compete moving into the postseason.”
The last varsity event was oral interpretation of drama where the team of Harvey, Svoboda, Pfanstiel, Spieker, and Unseld placed sixth.
The JV division had four medalists; Lillian Blank placing sixth in poetry; Trayton Christiansen placing fifth in informative speaking; the next two teams performed in oral interpretation of drama with a team of Aubree Uribe, Grace Retzlaff, and Colbie Podany placing fourth; and a team of Nickolas Efta, Payton Cederburg, Isaiah Yarde, and Alexis Sporleder placing first.
Head coach Amy Fleer says, “We had a very successful day at Battle Creek for our last regular season tournament. I am very proud of all the hard work our team has put in this season and happy that we had so many medalists. It was a wonderful way to end the regular season.”
The speech team will travel to Boone Central to take on the Mid-State conference speech meet on Saturday, February 26.
Varsity Speech Takes On Columbus-Lakeview
By Emma Risinger
On Friday, February 17, the varsity speech team loaded up the bus for Columbus Lakeview’s varsity only meet. The tournament consisted of two preliminary rounds, as well as both champions (1st-6th) and honors (7th-12th) finals divisions.
Beginning with medalists in entertainment speaking, Dalton Svoboda was the highest placement of the day in second, followed by Bode Hoffman in eighth. Haiden Magnussen was up next with 11th overall in informative, and Emma Risinger ranked 11th in extemporaneous.
Two of Pierce’s duets also placed: Svoboda and Kaila Spieker in seventh and Nikolas Harvey and Brielle Unseld in ninth.
Speiker provided her thoughts on the team’s performance at Lakeview saying, “I think our team performed very well at Columbus Lakeview. We had many medalists and received even more amazing feedback. Everyone did the best that they could, and we also got to see bigger class B schools. Overall, I think everyone went in with a positive mindset, and it paid off in the end.”
In addition, head coach Miss Amy Fleer gave her thoughts on the day explaining, "It was an extremely competitive meet, but we still saw some really great things in prelims and even in finals. We were able to get helpful feedback from judges and saw a lot of district competition to help us prepare in these last few practices. If we work hard, I believe we can end our season on a positive note."
The team will really be upping the ante this week in practice, with each individual event practicing twice with the coaches this week, as opposed to once. The first practice will focus on recording each person's speech, and during the second, the coaches will be sitting down with competitors so they can self critique their own speech, providing a new perspective going into the conference meet.
Mid-State conference competition will be held Saturday, February 25, at Boone Central.
