Following last year’s six gold medals performance during the spring championships, the forensics team has a great deal of pressure riding on its shoulders entering their competition at Azusa this weekend.

With an unusually large group of novice members, the forensics team is at a great advantage to score higher or win more awards this semester, debate coach Francesca Bishop said.

Senior competitor Brian Neesby, political science major, believes the knowledge their coaches bring have considerably helped them.

“They’re great coaches, and because of that, we have advanced our novice to a high level. We keep winning on the novice level a lot,” Neesby said.

There are a greater number of members at this point in the semester, he continued.

Neesby’s predictions follow close to Bishop’s. He said the new team members are doing a great job so far and under the supervision of the coaches will get better as time goes on.

“The novice members are progressing really well because of the coaches and their intellectual expertise,” Neesby said.

The coaches the team members are working with are great, Neesby said, and because of the coaches and their expertise, the team has a chance at doing well this semester.

As far as senior competitors like Neesby, who despite their size in comparison to the novice teams, are really knowledgeable and are really good in communicating the knowledge needed to win, Neesby said.

“On the senior and junior level, we only have a few team members, but they are fairly adequate and fairly versed in current events,” Neesby said.

Neesby’s partner is assi stant coach Tamsen Francis and Neesby said that their strength is the critique.

The critique is where an argument is presented to the team and they have to pinpoint and attack the language in which the argument is presented, if perhaps it is racist or biased in content.

“We’re still working on defending that even more,” Neesby said.

Two weeks before the semester started, the team compeated in a mini tournament on campus, which was a chance for the team to exhibit its talent and drive, Bishop said.

The team competed in four rounds during the mini tournament.

“It was great exposure for them,” Bishop said. “At the worst, the team won two and lost two, but most teams won three and only lost one.”

With a no-losing record from the mini tournaments, the forensics team plans to defend its titles this weekend at Azusa Pacific University, Bishop said.

The 16-week semester rushed the team into preparation; however, the team did very well.

Even the novice members, who are still learning debate methods taught in Speech 4, did well.

Bishop’s predictions for this weekend are positive and she believes the team could get into the finals.

“I think that they have the ability to get into the final round in the novice division,” Bishop said. “There are six preliminary rounds and they’ll take the best students and take them into the elimination round.”

The team will compete this weekend at Azusa Pacific University.