In their third scrimmage of the year, the Mock Trial team went up against Venture Academy as defense at Country Day on Dec. 2.
Sophomore Akilan Murugesan, lead attorney, described the scrimmage as a “learning experience.”
“No one did extremely well on our team. The majority of our team was just trying new positions, so that’s understandable,” Murugesan said .
Sophomore Emma Belliveau agreed, explaining that the roles were assigned to give the newer members more experience.
New to Mock Trial, freshman John Hansen was given his first major role as the defendant.
“I think it went pretty well. The experience helped me figure out what I might want to do in the future in Mock Trial,” he said.
Coach Jeanine Boyers said all of the new attorneys did well.
“(Sophomores) Emma Brown and Jenny Kerbs stood out and were really solid. They looked like they had a lot of experience going up against a good team,” she said.
According to Boyers, the murder case is tough to prove on both sides.
The prosecution argues that the defendant sold the victim Adderall, which exacerbated his heart condition and ended up killing him.
The team’s defense argues the opposite, that the defendant did not sell the victim Adderall, and that while the victim did have Adderal in his system, his heart attack was caused by alcohol.
While overall Murugesan says that the newer members did well, he still sees a lot of room for improvement, especially in the team’s theme (a phrase the team incorporates into their arguments).
“What ended up happening is that there was a hole in our theme right before the scrimmage. However, we didn’t have time to change that,” he said.
For example, against Venture Academy the theme was “alcohol, not Adderall.” It made the point that the victim died due to alcohol, not Adderall.
While there were some issues, Murugesan explained that he isn’t worried because it’s so early in the season.
“One of the problems that we had is we haven’t had much time to prepare. We didn’t have a lot of time for communication either,” he said.
