Extraordinary Results at State Mock Trial Competition

The EXCEED Academy Mock Trial team from Extraordinary Education competed at the Texas Mock Trial State Competition on March 8-9, 2013.

Team members included: Karina Brisack (lead attorney), Jacob Johnson (attorney), Michael Eaton (attorney/witness), Michael Strack (attorney/witness), Hayden Burger (witness), Sharon Collins (witness) and Fabian Fernandez-Han (witness). The team's sponsor is Maureen Ball and the team's attorney/adviser is Kevin Forsberg.

Although the team did not break to finals, the team performed very well and several team members were honored for their contributions to the team. Karina Brisack was named a Finalist for the Outstanding Advocate Award and Michael Eaton was named a Finalist for the Outstanding Witness Award. A student must be nominated by all three judges in a single round to be considered a Finalist, so this is quite an accomplishment for these students. It is also unusual to have two students from the same team nominated for these awards. This indicates a high level of talent on the EE team.

In addition to the students named as finalists, two other team members were nominated for Outstanding Witness. Hayden Burger received a total of five nominations and Michael Strack was nominated as well. Michael Eaton received a total of five nominations for Outstanding Witness and also received two nominations for Outstanding Advocate.

In the first round of competition, the EE team was matched against last year's 1st Place team, Prestonwood Christian Academy. The EE team only lost this round by a total of 9 points out of a possible 330 per team. It was a very close match. In addition, the team took all three nominations for Outstanding Witness and one of three nominations for Outstanding Advocate.

In the second round of competition, the team was again matched against a top team from last year, Monsignor Kelly Catholic High School. This team had placed 6th in 2012. Once again, the ballots were very close, and the EE team took two out of three Outstanding Witness nominations and one out of three Outstanding Advocate nominations.

In round three, the team was matched against PSJA North and lost with a split ballot. There was one win, one loss and a third ballot with a difference of only a single point. As in earlier matches, the team took all three nominations for Outstanding Witness and one of three nominations for Outstanding Advocate.

The EE team swept round four against Brownsboro by winning all three ballots. In addition, the EE team took all three nominations for Outstanding Witness and all three nominations for Outstanding Advocate.

This was the second year for EXCEED Academy to represent Region VI at state competition, and the team is only two years old. EXCEED Academy is the college preparatory program at Extraordinary Education Center in Magnolia.