NFL Update

NFL Membership is a way to recognize present and past work. It also determines how many students we can send to the Qualifying Meet on April 26. With our team size we an send 17, but with a few more members we could have room for as many as 19. With the Invitational Season finished , here's where our active team members stand:

Distinction (250-499)

Harriet E. Groenleer (389), Christina Le (376), Max Gilles (352), Brandy Andresen (338), Yefei Jin (315)

Excellence (150 - 249)

Nathan Ritsema (229), Catherine Khuu (226), Keenan Foley (182), Celeste Kessler (165), Regina Pell (154)

Honor (75 - 149)
Esther Charity Creswell (144), Anna VandenBerg (141), Daniel Hast (123), Sharon Hay (97), Evan VanderHoff (94)

Merit (25-74)

Oana Damacus (61), Abe Rinck (54), Ann Marie Brown (53), Emily Riippa (44), Rain Johnson, (39)

The Should Bes
And these have all earned more than enough points to be members, but haven't yet. Remember our total membership is what counts for how many students we can take:

* Max Erskine * Manuel Garcia * Walter Gilles * Rebecca Hansen * Andrew Hopewell * Will Hoyer * Edward Lofton * Javier Orozco * Emily Oxford * Tom Prangley * Sarah Remink * Margaret Root * Catherine Sternberg * Megan Winegar * Anna Witte * Emily Witte

OK Suprises

The OK meet was a small affair, but it still contained its surprises. Here are some of the highlights:

• Broadcasting
  Tom Tyrell took third, and a trophy!
• Extemp
  Catherine Khuss took second, and earned her first 1/100 of the season.
• Impromptu Open
  Christina Le dogged Josh Boerman the whole day. She took second.
• Informative
  Riet Groenleer took a second place trophy and earned her first 1/100 of the season.
• Oratory
  Esther Creswell was first. Her best so-far!
  
• Sales
  Cally Willette took third. There was a smile for you.
• Impromptu 9/10
  Evan Vanderhoff came in first!
  Walter Gilles brought home a third place trophy
• Dramatic Interp
  Celeste Kessler continued her winning was with a third place
• Duo
  Newcomers Haight/Roeland made it to finals and a third place finish!
• Multiple
  Sweet Smell of Success not only took second, but beat GR Christian's Dead Men Walking in round one. Way to go!
• Poetry
  Sharon Hays' hard work paid off with a third place finish

Congratulations to all our winners!

OK Meet Wraps up the Season

The invitational season wraps up with a three round tournament at our own Grand Rapids City High School. The tournament is notable for several aspects: it draws only from schools in Kent County and vicinity (hence "OK League"), and each participating school can only send 2 entries in any category.

Who's Coming?

• Belding
• Grand Rapids Christian
• Grand Rapids City
• Grandville
• Greenville
• Holland Christian
• Kenowa

With three rounds, we'll be finished by early afternoon.

Results tomorrow night.

Mattawan Results

On Saturday, March 22 we headed for Mattawan. Everyone did. We had a full house, complete with a bus. It was a good day to work on pieces, as well as complete class assignments. So how did we do?

Finalists
Christina Le (Impromptu Open) -- 5th
Evan VanderHoff (Impromptu 9/10), his first time! -- 5th

Semis:
Esther Creswell (Oratory) -- her first time in Semis!
Gilles/Jin (Duo)
Tom Prangley (Storytelling) -- his first time!
Nate Ritsema (Broadcasting
Tom Tyrell (Broadcasting) -- his first time!

Out for the First Time:
Tom Prangley (Storytelling) * Tiffany Kilts (Storytelling) * Raven Barnes (Prose) * Rain Johnson (Duo, with Montana Welton) * Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Rebecca Hansen, Lauren Wisely, Jordan Kopecki, Allegra Parseca) * Evan Vanderhoff (Impromptu) * Tom Tyrell (Broadcasting) * Javier Orozco (Broadcasting)

Our average score: 96.37
Better than the week before, but still reflects the youth of our team.

WOHO Results

Some went north, some went to Solo & Ensemble, and the rest went Holland High School on March 15. There were several pleasant surprises.

Finalists
Gilles/Jin (Duo) -- 7th
Catherine Khuu (Extemp), her first time! -- 7th

Semis
Dan Hast (Oratory), his first time!

Out for the First Time
Ann Brown (Poetry) * Sarah Reimink (Storytelling) * Montana Welton (Poetry) * Erin Freeman (Storytelling) * Jessi McKellar (Prose) * Amber Goodrich (D.I.) * Tabitha Haight/Pagiel Roland (Duo) * Steven Eden/Catherine Sternberg (Duo) * Colleen Knox / Jennifer Shamel (Duo) * David Caselletto (Impromptu)

With so many new, our average score was down: 96.07.

Century Club Update

With Holland, Districts and Mattawan all in 8 days, we've dropped behind the results.

So let's get busy -- our new members have the asterisk:

• Christian High:
  Christina Le (Impromptu 9), Nate Ritsema (Broadcast)*
• Portage Central:
  Max Gilles, Yefei Jin (Duo)*; Nate Ritsema (Broadcast); Christian Le (Impromptu 9), 2 in final round!
• Holland:
  Gilles/Jin (Duo), Brandy Andresen (Prose)*
• Mattawan:
• Gilles/Jin (Duo), Evan VanderHoff (Impromptu 9)*, Nate Ritsema (Broadcast)

Here we are by rankings:
Christina Le (4)
Nate Ritsema (3)
Max Gilles (3)
Yefei Jin (3)
Brandy Andresen (1)
Evan VanderHoff (1)

Congratulations!

The Last Invitational -- Mattawan

Saturday completes the Invitational Season. Mattawan will be the last tournament before state with a prelim-semi-final structure. (Map is down below) And of course, as the last tournament it will have plenty of entries. We're going with one of the largest contingents we have ever taken to a tournament. Ever. City High has 37 separate entries, and 51 students competing. That's a lot!

Transportation
We have a charter bus lined up. Bus fare is $5, round trip.

Schedule

• Meet at City: 6:00 a.m.
• Leave City: 6:15 a.m.
• Arrive Mattawan: 7:30 a.m.
• Extemp/BC draw: 7:45 a.m.
• General Meeting: 8:00 a.m.
• First Round: 8:30 a.m.
• Awards: 5:30 p.m.
• Leave Mattawan: 6:30 p.m.
• Dinner (place tbd)
• Arrive City: 9:00 p.m

Food
Mattawan will have food available for lunch, and some for breakfast. You may want to bring your own lunch. We will stop at fast food (Wendy's) for dinner, so you will want some money.

Here's Mattawan High School -- fifteen minutes west of Kalamazoo.


View Larger Map

Head for the West Coast

Saturday March 15 we head for Holland High School, and the WOHO Invitational. This is the third, of four major tournaments in West Michigan and the last one before we go to Districts. You can expect a fair number of the big players to show up (yes, that means the Portage teams. Sorry).

But I know what your thinking, what the heck is WOHO? (not to be confused with woo-hoo).
This is an abbreviation of the names of the schools that traditionally have hosted this Invitaitonal: Holland HS, and West Ottawa HS. So now for the details.

Where Are We Going?
Holland High School
600 Van Raalte Ave
Holland MI

This is an easy 45 minute drive away. And it's easy to get to.

Here's the map.


How Are We Getting There?
You know the answer: Car Pool

Driving this week will be:

• Brown (Ann)
• Reimink (Sarah)
• Rayor (Hast)
• Creswell (Esther)
• Hay (Sharon)
• Harris
• Karpen/Groenleer (Emily)

We'll divide up at school. So be sure to get there on time.

Speaking of....

Time Line

• Meet at City: 7:a.m.
  
  
• Leave City : 7:15 a.m.
  .
  
• Arr Holland: 8:00 a.m.
  .
  
• General Meeting 8:30 a.m.
  .
  
• Round 1: 8:55 a.m.
  .
  
• Awards: 5:30 p.m.
  .
  
• Leave Holland: 6:30 p.m.
  .
  
• ARR City 7:15 p.m.
  

Next Up: Mattawan. Only this time we have buses.

Transportation Woes (update)

We have a bus!
You may have heard by now -- we have a bus for our trip to Mattawan on Saturday, March 22. With early registration and a slightly longer drive, we sure could use letting some one else do the driving. We do have to charge a fare, however. It will be the same as last year: $5.

We Still Need Drivers for Holland
If your student is competing and you are willing to drive, we could use you. Right now we have 30 students going, but only 5 drivers. We are at least two cars short for transportation needs. If you're willing to help, contact Mr Harris (wmrharris [at] sbcglobal [dot] net.), or Ms P.

Here are our drivers to date: Brown (Ann's parents); Rayor (Daniel Hast's mom); Reimink (Sarah's parents), Mr Creswell (Esther's dad) and Mr Harris.

Portage Results

There were lots of good things about Portage: we had a chance to take along some of our new students, and our experienced performers had a chance to strut their stuff.

For those of you who love metrics, the measure we use for each tournament (and for the season) is the average score / round. For Portage our score was 96.18.

Welcome First Timers!

• Aja Kilgore, Poetry • Emily Oxfford, Prose • Walter Gilles, Impromptu •Margaret Root, Extemp

Return to the Semis
Gilles/Jin (Duo)

Our Final Round Performers

• Christina Le -- 3rd, Impromptu 9/10 • Nate Ritsema -- 5th, Broadcasting (his first final round of the season!) • Catherine Khuu -- 5th, Extemp (her first time ever in the Finals)

And S-o-o-o Close to a Sweepstakes.
Rankings of 1, 2 or 3 go into the sweepstakes tabulation. We ended up one point shy of third place. We're off to a great season!

Mark The (Midweek) Calendar

The next two weeks get hectic for the team: three events on the next two Wednesdays with plenty of travel to boot. Here's the rundown:

Wednesday March 12

WMLDL, Jackson County Western HS, Parma MI.
This is the last event of the League complete with pizza, cake and extra awards. We'll take one car full (that's six with a rental).

MCSI Novice State Tournament, Dexter High School, Dexter MI
This is an annual tournament or first time competitors in Forensics. Potentially we could take a ton -- 14 students have signed up wanting to go. But... (ah, that "but"), we are limited by drivers and judge requirements. As of now we have 2 drivers, and that's enough for only 8 to go. We'll be in touch this week in class about who should compete.

Wednesday March 19

Districts, South Christian High School, Cutlerville
This is the opening tournament that qualifies students to compete at the Regionals in April, and hopefully at State in May. We are limited to taking only two entries in each category. Fortunately we can meet that, unfortunately we have several categories (Duo, Prose) where we will have to make a choice about who goes.

How do we decide? We use the scores from previous competitions as our measure. The most significant score is the total percentage (we add up all your scores from all your rounds). If that does not seem valid to us, we may have tryouts before a neutral judge.

We'll post more on this next week.

So as they say, Mark your Calendar