Starting in early October, the forensics team began training in order to prepare for states, and their hard work and long hours of practice finally paid off.
The forensics team ended their seven month season with an overall 2nd place finish at states, including a staggering 25 state finalists- more than any number sent in Seaholm history.
Seaholm’s 12 season forensics coach Justin La- Bond is thrilled with the team’s results.
“I was ecstatic… Everyone [that attended states] placed in semi-finals,” LaBond said. “I’ve never seen or heard of another high school or college accomplishing this feat.”
The 25 students who competed at states all placed in the semi-finals (top 12), and seemed to share LaBond’s enthusiasm, including 3 time sales state champion Andrew Provost.
“The team as a whole was one of the best we’ve had in years,” Provost said. “We had both the talent and the depth to compete with the top schools. It was too bad that many of our top performers got screwed over by biased west-side judges.”
Provost began his success story as he sold Crocs his sophomore year, and continued his first place legacy junior year as he sold Airborne. The sales champion ended his high school forensics career selling Pur water filtration systems to win it all, yet again.
“When I won I was ecstatic. I thought I had a good chance, but you never know because your fate is all based on the preference of 13 judges,” Provost said. “I will miss the amazing people I have met over the last three years and the natural high that I get performing in front of an audience.”
“Andrew has been an integral part of the team’s success,” Labond said. “One state championship in a student’s career is a lifetime experience… Two state championships in a row is rare. Three state championships in a row is next to non-existent. I’ve seen maybe three or four kids accomplish this feat.”
Although Provost will be graduating this spring, his sophomore sister Allie will follow closely in his footsteps. Also in sales, she placed seventh at states, giving her brother a run for his money
“Competing with my brother kept me motivated,” Provost said. “If he wasn’t competing, I don’t think I would have tried as hard as I did because I wanted to beat him.”
Her motivation paid off throughout the season, as the siblings went back and forth taking first place.
“I loved beating him [Andrew], but I knew that he would beat me later on because he always is changing to make himself better,” Provost said.
The future of the forensics team will depend on the freshman, sophomores, and juniors like Allie, and LaBond has faith that they will step up to the plate.
“The current junior and sophomore classes are large and will continue to lead this team,” La- Bond said. “We have Jillian Spina and Luca Capicchioni who will be going into their second year as captain and they are fantastic leaders. Our success will largely depend on new people who watched Forensics Day and were inspired to join the team.”
Junior captain and next year’s senior captain Jillian Spina placed 5th in her informative speech on birthdays, and looks forward to next season.
“Losing the seniors will be a huge setback, they were some of the best on the team,” said Spina, “but we’ll have a good season [next year], the underclassmen have come a long way since they started.”
The second place finish was in large part to the senior class, yet the future of forensics remains optimistic.
Looking back, LaBond describes the 2008-2009 season in one word: “Magnificent.”
