by Anna Chong ’24

The Wyoming Seminary Mock Trial Teams just ended its invitationals for this year. They were divided into A and B teams. Each team consisted of two sides, prosecution and defense. Each side is supposed to have three attorneys and three witnesses when competing. Mock Trial is a competition that simulates real trials. Students are given a case that remained the same throughout the whole season. The process of preparing for the case required lots of time and hard work together as a team. The audition took place in early November. From then, both teams started writing and memorizing materials for the case. On January 15 and 16, both teams participated in the Blue & Gold Invitational hosted by La Salle University. On January 22 and 23, both teams took part at the University of Pennsylvania’s Ben Franklin Invitational. Each team held a total of eight trials in these two Invitationals, each trial lasting for three hours. Even though both tournaments were held virtually, both A and B teams have performed exceptionally well. Emily Aikens ‘22 received outstanding attorney awards at both events, while Abby Chong ‘24 and Paige Kenewell ‘24 won outstanding witness awards at the Blue & Gold Invitational. 

This year, the Sem Mock Trial Teams had welcomed a lot of new faces joining the team and spending a memorable time together. Every participant learned much from this amazing experience. Both teams would not be able to have such extraordinary performances without the coach, Dr. Peter Froehlich. As the A team just finished their district competition in mid February, Dr. Peter Froehlich, is invited to talk about his takeaways from this unforgettable event. According to Dr. Peter Froehlich, “We had a very successful season. At the invitationals, both teams scored well against a deep field of talented competition and several of our members received individual awards. In the district competition, sem had a perfect record of 3-0 and were judged the winners by a 14-1 ballots.” He said he was very impressed with Benjamin Zhao ‘22 and Emily Aikens ‘22 ‘s leadership and how independent students were turning material into the prepared statements. Witnesses embodied characters very well and there was much thinking involved on the feet. He stated that watching the B team competing was especially impressive since many of them were participating for the first time. It is great looking at them getting better and better after each trial.