BOOM…the gavel slams as the mock trial team finishes another successful season.

The season began in October  and came to an end when the team lost in the semifinals in February. The team qualified for the semifinals despite losing one of the four country competition matches.

“We really only have four competitions that count, so one loss is a really big deal,” said social studies teacher and mock trial coach David Keller.

This is Keller’s fourth year as the mock trial coach.

The season begins in September, the team is given a case packet which has information such as the pretrial argument and witness statements. Each team in the league gets the same case.

“Starting September we are just working on our case,” junior Henry Hopcraft said.

Each member of the team has a different role. There are prosecuting attorneys, defense attorneys and witnesses.

“The lawyers teach witnesses how to portray those witnesses on the stand and they begin writing a case theory, which is what they’re going to tell the jury,”  Hopcraft said.

The defense team then goes and argues against another team’s prosecution team and vice versa. The top four teams qualify for the semifinals which lead to the state championship.

The team practices twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays, but they sometimes have lunch practices, which varies depending on the role.

“We generally have a set outline of what we’re going to do and what we’re going to ask,” Hopcraft said. “A lot of mock trial is responding to the other team in the courtroom, so there are some things that you just can’t prepare for.”

Hopcraft said that you don’t necessarily have to have legal knowledge, as students are generally taught about the laws regarding the case and what they mean.

Each trial is judged by three volunteer attorneys who judge how the facts are presented and how well a team knows their case and the laws surrounding it rather than whether or not they “win” the case.

“Mock trial is a combination of debate and acting,” Keller said. “The more entertaining you can make presenting the facts, the higher you score, so for eight people on our team, that’s their job, presenting facts in an entertaining way.”

One experienced team member who is committed to bringing about the facts in a way that is as entertaining as possible is junior Eva Mills, who is a defense attorney in her third year in mock trial.

“I think honestly my favorite part about mock trial is that I’ve met a lot of people who I wouldn’t have known otherwise,” Mills said. “Mock trial can be a lot of work but it’s a shared community feeling of  ‘we’re all in this together’ and we have to collaborate because we are all working towards a common goal.”