Blue Ponies excel at Fort Benton speech tournament

Press release

Havre High School speech and debate took a larger team to a small tournament at Fort Benton High School Saturday, and the Blue Ponies excelled with some high placings.

Havre High Lincoln-Douglas debaters dominated the small field in their category, with sophomore Lyvia Little and junior Trinity Olsen leading the competition.

First-year freshman policy debaters Ishaan Vikas and Malachi Morris switched to Lincoln-Douglas debate at Fort Benton, and also did well.

Little, who won every ballot in her rounds at the tournament, gave Olsen her only losses in Fort Benton.

Little defeated a debater from Hays-Lodge Pole High School her first round before debating Vikas in the second round, giving him what was also his only loss at the meet.

Olsen beat a Cut Bank debater the first round before beating Morris in a head-to-head competition in the second round, then lost to Little in a close third-round match.

Olsen and Little were the top-ranked debaters after the three guaranteed rounds, and faced off again, this time on opposite sides of the topic, in finals.

Little won the finals round to take first place in Fort Benton with Olsen taking second.

Vikas, who beat his teammate Morris in the first round, came back from his second-round loss to defeat the Hays-Lodge Pole debater third round, but was behind Olsen in speaker points and didn't break into finals. He took third at Fort Benton.

Morris came back in the third round to beat the Cut Bank debater and placed fourth.

Havre's two speakers at the tournament, senior Carinna Kline, who debated her first two years on the team before switching to informative speaking, and sophomore Paige Anderson, who debated as a freshman then switched to impromptu speaking this year, also did well.

Anderson took a first-place and a second-place finish in the preliminary rounds to break into the finals round in impromptu, and ended in fourth place overall at Fort Benton.

Kline also scored well in prelims, including a second-place rank in the second round, and broke into finals and made a fifth-place finish for Havre.

The team doesn't compete again until the new year, going to a Shelby tournament then to Lewistown before heading into post-season play.

The eastern speech, debate and drama divisional tournament will be in Sidney this year, where students will compete to qualify for the Class A state tournament in Columbia Falls.