By Ryan Surmay, Features Staff
Image Courtesy of @sbu_mocktrial on Instagram/ The Bonaventure Mock Trial team poses in front of the Michigan State University College of Law entrance.
From Jan. 21-22, the St. Bonaventure University Mock Trial team traveled to the Michigan State University College of Law. It participated in the 10th annual Red Cedar Classic, a nation-wide mock trial tournament.
Over 20 teams went to the event. Some of the teams in attendance included: Michigan State, Eastern Michigan, Loyola Chicago, Case Western, Western Michigan, Rochester, Illinois Urbana-Champaign and others.
“The Red Cedar Classic at MSU was a great experience and opportunity for the mock trial team,” Maya Henderson, a junior political science major, said.
While the Bonaventure group mainly used this competition as a testing ground for the regional tournament, it did have one of their members recognized with an award. Dan Schiffhauer, a junior economics major, received the Outstanding Attorney award.
Inthe fall semester, St. Bonaventure offers mock trial as a three credit class. In the spring semester the group meets as a club.
Keli Smith, a sophomore double majoring in criminology and psychology, has been involved with the club since her freshman year and notes the group is currently working hard to prepare for their upcoming regional competition at Buffalo State..
“We are typically meeting two times a week but sometimes more with regionals being so close,” Smith said.
Henderson said a positive from the weekend was being able to compete and travel as a team.
“It has brought us all closer together and further out of our comfort zone,” Henderson said. “I’m so grateful that we were able to learn more about the legal field in such a fun and interactive way.”
Smith felt the team performed well.
“We are very happy with our performance, given what we had,” Smith said. “We struggled a little bit because we only had a little less than a week coming back from the break to practice, however, we learned a lot and got great feedback from the judges.”
The team did not stay to see how it placed since the tournament was far from campus. They left before the closing ceremonies on Sunday afternoon.
“We are waiting for them to ship us our ballots and awards,” Smith said.
The club has its regional tournament at Buffalo State on February 25 and 26 and if they perform, they will continue competing at the Opening Round Championship Series, (more commonly known as ORCS) tournament in Cincinnati, Ohio which 192 teams will make it.
Following this, the top six teams will move on to the American Mock Trial Associations’ national championship and compete in a tournament in late April.
