Wildcats finish runner-up at big forensics tourney

By Andy Brown
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Updated: March 15, 2016

The Louisburg High School forensics team poses with its runner-up trophy on March 5 from the Olathe Northwest tournament. Senior Emily Ventre won two individual gold medals and junior Carson Tappan also won gold.

The Louisburg High School forensics team divided up on March 5 and came back to Louisburg with plenty of hardware to show for its efforts.

Louisburg competed in two large tournaments as it traveled to Olathe Northwest for a tournament that featured more than 800 entries, while another group ventured to Paola for a 19-school tournament.

At Olathe Northwest, the Wildcats put together a strong effort as 17 entries made their way to the semifinals and nine more made the finals. Those efforts helped Louisburg to a second-place sweepstakes finish of the 22 competing programs.

“At this point in the year I am looking to see how some of my top performers stack up against great competition and are they consistent enough to get through a large tournament,” Louisburg coach Brian Weilert said. “Class 4A state is the biggest of the state tournaments with 500 entries and it is important to see who can stand out in a crowd. I was very proud of our efforts and to finish top-3 at this tournament is quite an accomplishment.”

The Wildcats had a few that stood out, which included Emily Ventre. The Louisburg senior was a double-gold winner as she won both Prose and Program of Interpretation.

Junior Carson Tappan also had a good day as he finished ahead of 54 others to take first in Orations and later took fourth in Impromptu in front of 88 other competitors.

Louisburg had plenty of other medalists as well. Rio Sierra came in fourth in Prose. Skylar Keaton (Informative), Kyle Green (Humorous Interpretation), Abigail Bergman (Poetry) and Stephanie Rose (Poetry) each finished sixth.

At Paola, the Wildcats finished fifth in the team standings and also had five finalists where many of the events ballooned over 40 entries, including 70 in Prose and Poetry.

Dalton Knipp led the way as he double-broke into the finals as he took fourth in Serious Solo Acting and fifth in Poetry.

Beckett Rasmussen came in third in Humorous Solo Acting, while Jonathan Ventre (Serious Solo Acting) and Jordan Shaner (Tabloid Extemp Speaking) each came in fifth.

“The Paola group had a better day than it looked like by finals counts,” Weilert said. “Many of the students had one bad ballot that kept them from the finals. We had a lot of good scores and many of these competitors were young.”