The CTE Center Mock Trial Team competed in the Region 10 semifinals and finals, making them one of three regional co-champions and allowing them to advance to the Texas High School State Mock Trial Competition for the third year in a row. The state competition will take place in early March at the George Allen Courthouse.

“It is always great to earn a bid to the state championships.,” coach Ben Ewald said. “Region X is usually the largest and most difficult region in Texas to win. The students have put in 100’s of hours of work and it has paid off.”

Being a relatively new team with five seniors graduating in 2022, sophomore Christine Han had some nerves before the competition.

“It feels great because we were really nervous because, we have like practically a brand new team this year,” Han said. “We just had to find our flow and just find how to function properly, you know, being a new team and all.”

Junior Maya Silberman had to take on a new role as an attorney for this year’s competitions, with more responsibility. 

“It’s a lot more responsibility on your shoulders, but it’s also a lot more rewarding,” Silberman said. “I wrote some of the questions, and on finals day I gave the closing argument for both rounds that we did. So it’s very fulfilling and it’s also kind of validating because we spent six months working on our case.”

Han and Silberman plan to use the regional competition in preparation for state.

“We’re trying to tighten up on our questions,” Han said. “Just make sure everyone has what they need memorized and just really like hammering in those objections.”

“I think we’re going to just review how we did at regionals and sort of look at what our strengths were, what our weaknesses were, and then I think just keep practicing,” Silberman said. “So making sure that our questions are memorized instead of having to read them off the page and practicing objections.”

Story was updated on 2/10 with quotes from Ben Ewald.