University of Iowa Mock Trial

For the second year in a row, Cornell College hosted one of the Opening Round Championship Series Tournaments in Cedar Rapids. This short distance from Iowa City gives UIMT a much appreciated feel of home field advantage during one of the most important tournaments of the season. After a disappointing end to last year's season, this year turned out to be a historic performance by UIMT, continuing a performance to remember from Regionals. After Iowa A and Iowa B showing just how evenly dominating they can be at Regionals, the two teams kept their success rolling at ORCS. What was once common for UIMT had not happened for a decade, but UIMT reignited their national recognition by qualifying two teams for the National Championship Tournament. After this weekend, with more than half the ORCS tournaments completed, UIMT's achievement was matched by only one other program in the nation (UCLA).  With ORCS running a new system of pairing teams  each round, many were curious of how the results might turn out at the end of the tournament. The 24 teams at the tournament were placed into four groups (A, B, C, and D) based on their team power ranking (calculated based on performance from the last three seasons). Team 1372 was placed in group B and 1373 in group C. Every team at the tournament would have to face one team from each of the four groups in an effort to even out the schedules. Despite this system, there was still some room for variability. Iowa B (1373) ended the tournament with the fifth toughest schedule, including a round against the top ranked team at the tournament, University of Chicago. After splitting the two ballots with the seventh ranked team team in the nation, Iowa B went into round four with their destiny firmly in their own hands. A razor thin finish in round four made for a lot of tension during the awards ceremony. Iowa A suffered some tough losses early on and had to compete in round four needing a little luck for their record to be good enough. Three of the last four years Iowa has finished ORCS with a record of 5-3. Twice it was enough to advance and once it wasn't. Iowa A stayed strong and did their job in the final round. Six teams advance out of the tournament and the two Iowa teams were announced as fifth and sixth. Despite the anxiety during awards, this only made the hard earned victory that much more thrilling. With both teams claiming their trophies, it's quite the overwhelming experience when all the competitors are able to celebrate their own success. Beyond this, we also had one individual award. Continuing her stellar performance as the defendant, Serena Qamhieh was awarded as Outstanding Witness for the second tournament in a row. This is the first time since AMTA created the ORCS round of tournaments that a UIMT competitor has been awarded as a witness at both ORCS and Regionals in the same season (this has been accomplished multiple times as an attorney by UIMT  competitors).

Iowa Mock Trial really showed their stuff and had a fabulous weekend at the Regional Tournament down in Kansas. Both teams chased perfection at the tournament but each suffered one loss. Iowa A ended up splitting a pair of ballots with the team finishing in fourth place while Iowa B was undefeated until splitting the pair of ballots in the final round. This put our two teams in a three way tie for the best record with the University of Minnesota. While our two teams finished at the front of the pack, we had to settle for 2nd and 3rd Place based on tie-breakers. However, UIMT can't complain too much about finishing near the top of the podium as we still collected our two trophies to the Opening Round Championship Series at the beginning of March. With our A and B teams continuing the success of our C team, UIMT finished the Regional Tournaments with a combined record of 20 - 4, one of our most historic performances at Regionals. Our powerhouse group of competitors also had two individual award winners to add to the celebration. Senior member Serena Qamhieh finished her final Regional Tournament with a pair of awards as she was named both All-Regional Attorney and All-Regional Witness. While Iowa has had a number of competitors win All-Regional honors on both sides of the case, they have frequently been as double-sided attorneys. Serena is the first UIMT competitor since 2009 two be named All-Regional in both roles (attorney and witness). Another senior competitor, Ellen Wandro, has displayed similar dual role talents all year long and was only one rank away from duplicating Serena's accomplishment. Ellen would instead have to settle for only being an All-Regional Attorney, but she clearly dominated as she was tied with one other for the highest attorney ranking at the tournament.

After having the start of our Spring semester hampered by weather, UIMT got back into action at Loras College's historic National Invitational. This tournament was very important as it is our only opportunity this semester to face some competition before the Regional Tournaments. Despite not having a lot of time to prepare, our three teams stepped up and displayed a lot of quality ahead of our upcoming Regional Tournaments. Our C Team had a couple extra hurdles to overcome leading up to the tournament, but they still pulled through to have an encouraging outcome considering the circumstances. Most of their losses were by small margins, as well. The C Team had one award winner as senior member Abby Hudock named Outstanding Attorney. We also saw good success from our B Team as they were only a few points away from finishing as an Honorable Mention. Two of their losses came against the team finishing in fourth place. Iowa A had a strong showing by going through one of the top five toughest schedules at the tournament and finished in 5th Place out of 44 teams. This team also had two award winners from two of the leaders in this group. Ellie Hoeper was no surprise as an Outstanding Witness given that she has been winning awards in all three years of her time in UIMT. In fact, her very first award in mock trial was as an Outstanding Witness at the Loras competition three years ago in her first season. Our President, Isabelle, Breitfelder was awarded as an Outstanding Attorney, showing how she is a leader both in and out of competition.

This weekend UIMT took a break from traveling and hosted our own tournament in Iowa City with 14 of most elite teams in the midwest. Our A team had a tough time as they had to go through one of the toughest lineups of opponents at the tournament. Because of the exclusivity of our tournament, only the top three teams earned trophies. This caused our B team to just miss earning a trophy as they tied for the 4th best record. Each of our teams had an individual award winner to represent the Hawkeyes during the awards ceremony. To make our tournament more unique, we provided the individual award winners with camping mugs to commemorate this year's case involving Calkins Campground. Vice President, Christian Pint earned his Calkins Campground mug as an Outstanding Witness. Ellen Wandro especially put her talents on full display as she was named the Double Threat Award winner. This is an award given at the Cornshucker Challenge to the competitor who earns the most combined ranks while playing an attorney on one side of the case and a witness on the other side. Ellen is continuing an impression start to her senior year as she has now won an award at her first two tournaments of the year. This also marks three years in a row that an Iowa competitor has earned the Double Threat honor (Sophie Ortiz in 2018 and Megan Koch in 2017).

In one of our favorite tournaments we attend every year, UIMT kicked off its season by competing at the Arch Invitational hosted by Washington University in St. Louis. We sent four teams of 26 total competitors down for their first official tournament of the year. Our competitors went head to head with many familiar foes from the Missouri and Illinois areas. UIMT went 11-7-2 against these schools that we will see often during the rest of the season. We were also able to get experience against schools from a little further away in Rhodes College in Memphis and the University of Tennessee. With WashU being the first tournament of the season, it provides a great opportunity to test out the new case and make our first strides in a long journey of improvement. Even with the focus being put on learning and improving, it still feels good to bring home some trophies. One of our teams of more experienced members battled one of the toughest schedules of the tournament and came away with a 4th Place finish to win our first trophy of the season. Additionally, we had SIX individual award winners, our most since WashU in 2012. Ellen Wandro and Serena Qamhieh showed a strong start to their senior seasons with their performances as the defendant to earn Outstanding Witness Awards. Ellie Hoeper showcased her talents as an attorney with her award while Danica Merrill and Thomas Finn showed the promise their second year in the program holds with their Attorney and Witness Awards respectively. UIMT had 9 new members competing in their first collegiate mock trial tournament and they showed off a lot of talent and future success. This was led by Tess Paxson as she earned Outstanding Witness honors. While this was Tess' first collegiate tournament, she is certainly no stranger to the activity as she has a number of years of experience in mock trial from high school. We expect we'll see many more awards from our new competitors during the rest of the season.