The school finished in first place at the UIL Academic District Meet on Saturday at Wakeland High School, after narrowly losing last year.

“We won sweepstakes by more than 100 points,” UIL Academic coordinator Courtney Benson. “We won in several events. Each person that placed added points to our overall sweepstakes, so even though they may not have progressed to regionals, they still added points and they were still valued.”

Nine students who placed first, second, or third in their competitions will move on to the regional competition in Prosper.

“The competition is always very tough, but some of our events that went to state last year like science and computer science,” Benson said. “It’s going to be competitive for them again but they have a good shot at it because a lot of them are returning members.”

Students Parker Butler and Elaine Mei placed first and second in Lincoln Douglas debate respectfully, sealing their spots at Prosper.

“They’re working through their cases, they’re going back through their flow sheets from when they were competing against other people, looking at their cases and how to defend against them,” debate coach and English teacher Melissa Maier said. “They never let me down in anything they do.”  

The competition was a success for senior Abby Dasgupta who placed third in Editorial Writing in her first time ever competing.

“It was great,” Dasgupta said via text message. “I was kind of confused at first because I’d never done a UIL event before and I wasn’t familiar with the procedure, but other people from Liberty helped me out so it wasn’t that stressful. I’m just surprised that I advanced in general because this was my first UIL event and I wasn’t expecting anything but a cool experience.”

Teams:

School Points

Frisco HS, 23

Liberty HS, 417

Lone Star HS, 162

Centennial HS, 289

Wakeland HS, 226

Heritage HS, 217

Independence HS, 196

Reedy HS, 168