After hours of competing, speech team came in third place at the Metea Invitational on Jan. 30.

The event was very difficult and tiring for the team.

“They did well. It was a long day. When you’re in a building for 12 hours outside of school time and you’re being asked to focus and perform at the top of your abilities, it’s a pretty huge accomplishment,” coach Paul Lichy said.

The team was proud of their success at the event considering how small the team is compared to the others.

“This went how I wanted it to go. As a coach, I realize that for a team of 20 kids, our team is probably not going to beat a team of 100 kids. So by us getting third place, that’s really where I want us to be,” Lichy said.

Speech team was also at the Upstate Eight Conference on Jan. 23 and came in second place.

They were, again, surprised and pleased since they also had a small amount of people at the event.

“We only have about 20 or 25 people on our team this year and they had 80,” Lichy said.

The outcome of this tournament helped speech team settle and clear up most of the confusion the students had about who would compete.

“It really helped us figure out our positioning for regionals. Towards the end of the year, there’s a lot of shifting, moving, and changing of pieces, trying to figure out who’s going to be the entry. This is the kind of tournament that helps us narrow that down,” Lichy said.