The harmlessly named Speaking Bobkittens tore apart the competition at this year’s annual novice tournament and hope to help the upperclassmen clench the national championship in April.
This year, OU edged out Miami University by only four events at the Novice Nationals. It competed against 31 teams. The Bobkittens, who are first-year members of the OU Forensics Team, scored 412 points compared to Miami University’s 287 points.
The Novice National championship allows the freshmen competitors to “prove ourselves to the rest of the team and country, that we have the best first-year competitors,” said Brett Martz, a junior who led the Bobkittens to victory with four individual wins.
“It looked close, but when the finals scores came out, we (Bobkittens) did better in the preliminary,” coach Dan West said. Although making it to the finals in all tournaments is the ultimate goal, advancing is also imperative as competitors receive team points for each round, he added.
The victory two weeks ago in Indianapolis gave OU its 10th consecutive tournament win and made it the fourth year in a row that the OU Speech and Debate Team has won a team national championship.
Forensics tournaments are held all around the country, and the team’s travel is funded by the Scripps College of Communication.
The Bobkittens participate in anywhere from two to nine categories, which include dramatic duo, poetry interpretation and prose interpretation, among others. With the exception of the impromptu or limited preparation speeches, students perform speeches they have worked on all year.
The team spends “countless hours, practicing everyday, twice a day, in hope of perfection,” Martz said.
West named the Speaking Bobkittens three years ago after winning the Novice National Championship, West said. Following the win, the team took a two-year hiatus from the tournament because of conflicts with other competitions at the time.
Tony Sylvester, a senior on the speech and debate team, was part of the previous group of Bobkittens that attended and won both the novice and state championships three years ago.
“(It is) beneficial to be a freshman and get more national exposure before going to the main national competition,” Sylvester said.
This month, 27 students will be attending the National Forensics Association tournament at Illinois State University. The Speaking Bobcats, comprising both the Bobkittens and upperclassmen, will compete against about
90 teams.
With other tournaments out of the way, the Speaking Bobcats’ eyes are on the national championship.
“The (National Forensics Association tournament) is the big tournament we work for,” West said. “We want to be the best.”
Novice Tournaments last two days and go by rounds, typically with three preliminary rounds against six other competitors per room while the National Forensics Associaton tournament lasts three days and has four rounds of preliminaries making it a lot longer, West said.
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