The Forensics Team are diligently preparing for the KHSSL State Tournament that takes place later this week at Northern Kentucky University. All year they have been practicing twice a week for two hours in which they rehearse alone and then perform for their coach, Aaron West, who provides critique and praise.

“Our main focus area before State is to continue honing and polishing our performances,” explained Coach West. “This late into the season, we don’t try to make major changes; instead, we build on what we have been working on all year.”

The team consists of six students who have spent the last year in a cycle of practicing, competing, and hardware: Lucas Gamble, Landon Ray, Zuzu Pulley, Hannah Huntley, Roland Downey, and Hunter Carr. Last month at the Regional Tournament they placed 3rd overall.

“This year our goals for State will be a bit higher than in the past few years,” said Coach West. “Last year we had one entry make it to the quarterfinal found. We would like to see multiple entries make it past the preliminary rounds. I think that we have the potential to see a lot more success this year.”

This will be junior Lucas Gamble’s second year competing at state. Last year he was a quarterfinalist, but after being recently named Regional Champion in Extemporaneous Speaking, he is “dead set” on reaching semifinals in at least one of his events.

“I do an event called impromptu speaking, which focuses on personal interpretation of some form of a quote and then directly improvising a speech from that interpretation,” Gamble explained. “Alongside this, I compete in an event called Extemporaneous speaking, which is similar to impromptu but focuses on current-events-based questions, and you are given a more significant amount of time to answer the question. Finally, I do an event called Improv duo, in which a partner and I are given some kind of prompt and then perform some form of skit that we come up with it.”

Zuzu Pulley, regional runner-up in Improvisation Duo, will compete in prose, impromptu speaking, and improvisational due at state.

“I’m hoping to place at state,” she said,  “but I’ll be satisfied no matter what. I’m just glad to have the opportunity to learn and improve.”