Mock Trial Takes NH Championships, Advances to Nationals at Madison

For the third year in a row, Exeter’s Mock Trial Team returns to Exeter with a first place trophy in hand and a spot to compete in Nationals.The group of Exonians was divided into three competition teams, A, B and C. A Team won first place, and will compete against teams from all over the nation in Madison, Indiana on May 8th. The B and C teams received 3rd and 5th place, respectively.Mock Trial, which was founded in 2007, placed 10th nationally last year and 26th the year before.Senior co-head Audrey Zheng said that the team was able to triumph after a difficult struggle. “A team had won our round against Bishop Guertin, but B team lost against Souhegan. We then faced Souhegan in the championship round this afternoon. It was a hard-fought round, but we came out on top,” Zheng said.Senior co-head Rohan Pavuluri acknowledged the several hurdles Exeter Mock Trial had to overcome this year to take the crown.Pavuluri said that as the “two-time defending champion,” the team prepared and performed under the pressure of winning again. Despite the stress, he noted that the members’ effort brought the team to victory.“Of our three victories, this one was definitely the most momentous in my mind. Many of us had never worked together before, yet we were able to work so closely and effectively all by ourselves,” he said.He also noted the team’s independence in preparing for the case, commending his fellow members for a job well done.“Three weeks before the championship, however, our beloved adviser, Mr. Stahr, had to go to California for family reasons,” he said. “Without an adviser on campus for the most important weeks before the championship, we ran our practices without any adult. It was during these meetings that I fully came to grasp how special every member of our team really was.”Club advisor Walter Stahr highlighted the students’ passion and dedication in preparing for the case.“Starting in late October, when we received the state case, we worked on it in small groups, developing questions and arguments,” Stahr said. “I helped, but they did most of the work themselves. We have smart kids and they work hard. That sounds simple but that is nine tenths of Mock Trial.”The club prepared actively for the competition, attending an invitational tournament with the same case to prepare for the state championship, and sometimes spending more than 8 hours per week working on the case.“At the Bishop Guertin tournament in December, we had mixed-level teams,” senior and co-head Audrey Zheng said, describing the step-by-step process by which the Mock Trial team prepared do perform at their best level in the state championships. “After that, we stacked three teams by level, and then began preparing using what we'd learned at the contest. Since then we've been working together preparing different parts of both prosecution and defense cases.”In addition to the out of school tournament, members held an in-house trial as a way to better prepare themselves and gauge the level of understanding between themselves.“One of the most helpful parts of our preparation was a scrimmage we held last weekend between A team and B team,” Zheng said. “It was a great "test run" for both teams, taught both teams a lot in terms of our strengths and weaknesses, and gave both of us time to work on the weaknesses before the competition this weekend.”“Everybody put in lots of effort, especially during the last two weeks before the competition. We were spending an average of 8 hours and more each week working,” lower Yena Cho said.Pavuluri echoed Cho’s sentiments. “We met extensively every week in both lawyer-witness pairs and as an entire team. Lawyers and witnesses also met amongst themselves to write statements, cross examinations, and work on character presentation together.”Senior and co-head Alice Ju also explained that the necessary funding of the club was paid for by the members of the club and largely supported by the Academy’s Student Council.“Every member of the Mock Trial team pays a certain amount to cover transportation and registration fee, and we also have received help from Student Council for the past three years, which is essential, since there is no way we could have competed without that support,” she said.Ju continued, “We are a relatively young club, and we don't have an endowment or anything like that.”Now that Mock Trial has secured the state title, Ju explained that the Club will wait and rest until the national case is released on April 1st. She stated that the team hopes both to learn from the state competition while training for the National Championship in May, and hopefully become the national champions.“I've seen the program grow and expand more than I ever could have imagined, and we've become such a tight-knit team that works so well together that I'm looking forward to the hours we're no doubt going to spend locked in small rooms together arguing over the case before the competition in May,” Ju said, voicing enthusiasm for the future of the Academy's Mock Trial team.Stahr agreed with Ju’s views. “We are going to learn lessons from this weekend; yes we won but we could have done better,” Stahr said.“I think every kid on the team can think of a few things he or she could have done better; and that determination to do better is part of why I love working with the Exeter mock trial team.”