Five place at speech, drama state

Bigfork High School speech and drama didn't have enough participants to bring back any team trophies from the state meet in Missoula last weekend, but they did leave with some individual hardware.

"We fought against 59 other schools and I feel like we did great," said Charlie Appleby, BHS speech and drama coach. "It's amazing to me that my kids have so much faith in themselves and in our program that when they don't win it all, there is a little disappointment."

Two students who were anything but disappointed were Jacob Sefcak and James Vale. The pair was named Class B-C State Champions for Humorous Duo.

"I have to say it's getting harder to win each year," Sefcak said. "The competition was fierce. James and I really had to buckle down to win this one."

Sefcak won the event last year at the Class A State Meet with then-partner Jerry Gaiser, who graduated last year.

"I'm really happy," Sefcak said. "It was my goal to win two and now I have another year to win a third."

This was the first meet that they have won this season. The duo weren't able to compete together much this season because Sefcak was performing in plays with the Bigfork Playhouse Children's Theatre. This also meant that they weren't very familiar with their competition.

"The first day of the state meet we were shocked by how tough the competition was," Sefcak said. "We were a little bit shook up about it."

By the time finals had rolled around, the boys' nerves had calmed and they were ready to contend for the championship.

"It was a nail-biter," Sefcak said. "It was pretty much between us and two other duos. It was pretty much anyone's game. I wouldn't say we were surprised, but really we were just excited that we were able to beat so many other great performers."

In Memorized Public Address, Kayla Carlson went into finals in the lead, but fell to fifth place overall in the final round. Zoe Gaiser took fifth as well in her event, Humorous Oral Interpretation. Amber McDaniel finished eighth in Serious Solo. In Impromptu Speaking, Alex Neu made semi-finals in the event which saw three of the top four finishers come from Loyola.

"I think that they all truly believed that they were the best in the state and set out to prove it," Appleby said of his team. "That carried us to an amazing finish where six of our seven competitors made it to semi-finals, and five of those six made it to the state finals."

Loyola-Sacred Heart High School's speech team took the top honors for the 27th straight year in a row and Colstrips' drama team was the Class B champions.

Last weekend's state meet concludes the speech and drama season. Bigfork will lose eight participants to graduation this year. Ernie Cottle, Alex Neu, Angela Gross, Krisie Henderson, Kenny Patrick, Kayla Carlson, Marcy Franklin and Lena Olson are all seniors this year.

"Despite the loss of several key seniors, it's hard not to look forward to next year, to wonder if, with a little recruiting and a lot of work, we might just be able to make some more noise at state, this time as a team," Appleby said.