Mock Trial team wraps up season on Owatonna

OWATONNA — The verdict is in.

The Owatonna High School Mock Trial team finished their season by competing in the regional finals against Albert Lea on Feb. 26. Though they didn’t take the win, which would have sent the team to compete at the state level, they did put up a good defense.

Emily Somers, who stepped in as the advisor for the Mock Trial team this year, said the Owatonna team did well.

“Albert Lea is a very good team,” she said. “Both of us were on our game.”

This year, the Mock Trial competition asked students to put act out a lawsuit where a mother, whose son died unexpectedly of a heart attack, sued the high school he attended. The fictional case portrayed a 17-year-old senior as a star sprinter on the high school track team, who had the steroid Oxandrin in his blood when he died. The mother said the school and the track coach were negligent in causing the boy’s death, because she claimed the boy was encouraged to use steroids by those in the athletic department.

“It’s a civil case so they were trying to hold the school and the coach liable and the coach came back and tried to hold the parents liable for the drug use,” said Somers.

Owatonna came in four points behind Albert Lea, but the team also made some improvement.

Junior Elizabeth Herzog, who has competed in Mock Trial all throughout high school, said coming into the season, things were a little bit different this year.

“It was kind of a rebuilding year because we pretty much lost everybody on our A team except two players,” said Herzog.

Both Herzog and Joe Dingmann came back for the Mock Trial competition, heading up the group as co-captains. The team also bumped some students up from what was the B team last year and recruited new members to build both sides needed for the court room competitions — the prosecution and the defense. Each of the team captains had their own challenges to rise to, however.

For Herzog, who performed the part of a 12-year-old child in last year’s competition, her role in the case was quite a bit different.

“I played the leading witness on the plaintiff side,” said Herzog. “Her name was Kelly Anderson, and her daughter died of an Oxandrin overdose, which is basically a steroid.”

Next to building a convincing case with her team, Herzog had to get into the mindset of a mother who had lost her son.

“It was actually really, really hard because I had to be the grieving mother, so I had to figure out some way to show that,” said Herzog. “I tried to cry on the stand.”

Dingmann played two roles this year, acting as both of the witnesses in the case.

The team will celebrate the season with a banquet tonight, where they will present awards for the MVP and the most-improved player.

Melissa Kaelin can be reached at 444-2372.

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Member Opinions: By: NoteTaker on 3/9/10 I would've loved to have been on a Mock Trial team and so I read with envy your accomplishments. It seems to me that such scenarios do a lot for helping young people develop critical thinking and analytical skills, both of which are greatly needed in our society yet sorely lacking. Congratulations to all of you and thank you for doing a fine job of representing both Owatonna as well as yourself.
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