Placing second above all junior colleges, the Forensics team defended its title at the Epicenter Invitational at Cal State Northridge (CSUN) and at the Griffin Invitational at Grossmont College.

There were 16 teams that went all the way to finals, team president Stephanie Rhodes said.

All of the novice teams broke through.

Rhodes, who along with Milad Hassani, were semi-finalists.

Also on the junior level, Brian Neesby and John Suzuki were octo-finalists (Octo-finals comes before quarter-finals; there are 8 rounds in total).

First-year member Jason Ellefson, who won first place honors for dramatic interpretation, credits coach Diana Crossman, who helped him construct the speech, and acting coach Ron Scarlata for also helping.

First-year team members Daisy Kim and Michelle Turman, who also reached the finals at CSUN, said that it was a really good experience competing with other schools.

“It was a really good educational experience,” Kim said.

Kim, who agreed with Turman, said that it was good to learn more thoroughly about debating.

“We have the mindset of how debates should work,” Turman said.

Novice team members in their future performances in December’s fall championship will show that on a greater level.

“I think by fall championships, we’ll be having a better tournament than we’ve already been having,” Crossman said about the experience of new and returning team members.