By Brenda Erdahl
For the third time in five years, the Maple Lake High School speech team was crowned conference champions. It happened on Tuesday, March 18 at the Central Minnesota Conference meet in Kimball.
The Irish posted four first place, and four runner-up finishes in its bid for the top spot. The Irish dominated with 128 points to next-in-line Eden Valley-Watkins with 119. Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa finished third with a score of 51; Paynesville was fourth with 46; Royalton was fifth with 37 and Kimball was sixth with 21.
Claiming first place medals for the Irish was the Duo Interpretation team of Carter Ertel and Oliva Mueller; Keely Dircks in Informative Speaking; Makkal Tessman in Great Speeches and Tristin Stoeber in Discussion.
The Duo Interpretation team of Annie Dumphy and Kayleigh Turner finished second along with Hayden Dircks in Discussion, Isaiah Larson in Creative Expression and Nolan Cole in Extemporaneous Reading.
Ethan Pavlenko finished third in Extemporaneous Reading, Isabelle Greenen was third in Informative Speaking, Rayna Bergstrom was third in Creative Expression and the team of Nathan Halloran and Ralph Krohn was third in Duo Interpretation.
The team of Kaylee Pfeiler and Lydia Hughes was fourth in Duo Interpretation and Blake Stoeber was sixth in Humorous Interpretation. Up next for the Irish speech team is sub-sections on Thursday, April 3 at Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted High School. The competition begins at 4 p.m.