Fishers won their division and second overall in the IHSFA State Speech Tournament on March 10 from 6 am to 11 pm. Among the State Champions were juniors Ross DeLong in broadcasting, Gabe Glover in impromptu, Maddie Butler in discussion and seniors Brayton Wilds and Kaleigh Stohler in duo and David Ho in international extemporaneous.

“A lot of people think [speech team] is just one person that gets up in front of an auditorium full of people and speaks for everybody, but it’s actually more a room with five or six other competitors and a judge,” junior Olivia Craig said.

Craig is apart of informative and original oratory speech. She went on to compete at the state competition held here at FHS.

Typically, four to six students perform per speech event at the beginning of the season. Once the team makes its cuts for varsity, teams in the individual groups dwindle down.

Currently, the team is moving on from the state championships to preparing for a meet in Florida over the summer.

Stohler is focusing on taking a break in order to prepare for the meet.

“After break we’re planning on cleaning up anything that was still sloppy at the end of the season and maybe adding some new things so it stays fresh for us,” Stohler said.

Stohler continues to work towards making sure her speech pieces can be enjoyed by all audiences and judges.

“The hardest part would probably be trying to appeal to all audiences because when you have funny and sad pieces in the same round a judge may like one style more than the other even if they’re both the same technical level,” Stohler said.

The speech team has finished with state competition titles for the past several years. This year follows suit of last year’s placement which was also second in state. For the next year, the team is focusing to take over their competitor and this year’s state champion Munster.