Cedar County high school speech teams compete at Wayne meet

WAYNE – The Hartington-Newcastle, Cedar Catholic and Wynot high school speech teams took their talking talents to Wayne on Feb. 4.

The Wildcats, Trojans and Blue Devils competed at the 18-team 2023 Wayne High/Wayne State Classic, which was sponsored by Wayne High School and held at Wayne State College.

“Congratulations to the HNS speech team on placing second,” Hartington-Newcastle speech coach A.J. Johnson posted on Twitter. Host Wayne won the team title with 222 points, followed by Hartington-Newcastle, 177 points; Pierce, 163 points; Wausa, 160 points; and Battle Creek, 147 points. Cedar Catholic finished in a tie for 11th with O’Neill, with both teams ending up with 65 points. Wynot placed 13th with 61 points. With so many competitors, there were three tiers of finals set up for each event: The Champion Finals were the first tier for the top six. The Honors Finals were the second tier for the next six. The Merit Finals were the third tier for the final six. This means the top 18 competitors in each event moved on to a final. The Wayne meet also is set up to be a NIETOC qualifier. NIETOC stands for National Individual Events Tournament of Champions.

The competition results for Hartington-Newcastle were: -Duet Acting: Lane Heimes and Dayton Sudbeck, third, Champion; Alivia Morten and Lainey Morten, fifth, Merit.

-Entertainment Speaking: Cole Heimes, fourth, Champion; Alexus Hans, third, Honors.

-Humorous Prose: Carsen Hopping, first, Champion; Turner Dendinger, sixth, Merit.

-Informative Speaking: Kennedy Gotch, second, Champion; Hazel Hochstein, fourth, Champion.

-Oral Interpretation of Drama: Turner Dendinger, Dane Gotch, Carsen Hopping, Carter Kelley and Issac Santiago, first, Champion; Cole Heimes, Lane Heimes, Mani Lange, Alivia Morten and Dayton Sudbeck, second, Honors.

-Persuasive Speaking: Emma Wubben, second, Honors.

-Poetry: Ryell Haug, fourth, Honors; Kaylee Ptak, fifth, Merit.

-Program of Oral Interpretation: Kennedy Gotch, fifth, Champion.

-Serious Prose: Dane Gotch, sixth, Champion; Issac Santiago, second, Merit.

Johnson described the Wayne competition as a “good meet” for the Wildcats.

“It’s very big with some schools we typically don’t see,” he said. “We had some students step up their performances this week.

“We hope to take what we learned on Saturday and improve upon it for the conference and Wausa meets this week,” he said.

Hartington-Newcastle will host the Lewis and Clark Conference Speech Contest on Feb. 8 in Hartington. Three days later, the Wildcats will hit the road to Wausa and compete at the Wausa Speech Invitational.

For Cedar Catholic, Grace Kleinschmit placed first in Serious Prose in the Champion Finals and second in Poetry in the Champion Finals.

Elizabeth Rokusek finished in third place in Poetry in the Champion Finals and third place in Humorous Prose in the Merit Finals.

Ava Stewart placed sixth in Informative Speaking in the Honors Finals, Ben Kleinschmit placed sixth in Informative Speaking in the Merit Finals and Madison Kuchta placed sixth in Serious Prose in the Merit Finals.

“This was an outstanding showing for our small but mighty team,” Cedar coach Beth Sindelar said.

“With so much on the plates of these competitors, victories of this kind are no small feat,” she said. “After an incredible Catholic Schools Week, it was a great way to celebrate.”

The Trojans will next travel to Wausa High School to compete at the Wausa Speech Invitational on Feb. 11.

The competition results for Wynot were: -Duet Acting: Jude Krie and Colin Wieseler, first, Honors (two perfect 50s).

-Entertainment Speaking: Holden Merkel, sixth, Honors.

-Oral Interpretation of Drama: Hannah Dodge, Isabelle Heimes, Jude Krie, Eliza Lange and Colin Wieseler, second, Champion; Justis Collins, Benjamin Dodge, Kailen Hanson, Holden Merkel and Francesco Turchetto, fifth, Honors.

-Serious Prose: Isabelle Heimes, second, Champion.

Wynot competes in the Lewis and Clark Conference contest Feb. 8 at Hartington-Newcastle.