The Saint Louis U. High Speech Team competed in its third and final regular season meet this past Sunday, capping off a strange season. The team was not as successful as they had been in years past, but still was able to grow and become better together.

Nearly every co-curricular at SLUH has been affected in one way or another by Covid-19, and the Speech Team is no different. In a typical year, students from around the St. Louis area compete in various categories such as Poetry, Extemporaneous, and Oratory. 

Though this year’s meets did happen, the meets were moved to Zoom, where students were moved to breakout rooms to compete in their respective categories. After some initial mishaps, the new format carried on with virtually no problems.

“Just like with everything virtual it has become (normal),” said Speech Team moderator Kathryn Whitaker. “At the beginning, it was like ‘Oh, what to do, and how’s this going to work,’ but now everything has smoothed out a lot.”

Although there were talks of returning to in-person speech as the season went on, the general consensus between teams was that it was not worth the risk with the virtual setting proving to be functional.

“It’s not quite like being live,” said Whitaker, “But I think it is the best alternative. They talked a number of times about if we wanted to try to go back live, but I think that, given where we are, that would be futile and wouldn’t make sense.”

The season was also strange because of a dropoff in the level of success the team has enjoyed in recent years.

As the reigning champions of the Christian Interscholastic Speech League, SLUH had high hopes heading into the season of defending their title. However, the team was hit hard by graduation, losing all but one returning member, senior Carter Fortman. The vacant spots on the team were filled primarily by underclassmen, giving SLUH a more inexperienced group. 

This year’s team was not only inexperienced, but also small compared to teams of previous years. SLUH was unable to field a full team consistently, and their place in the standings was affected as a result. SLUH currently sits in fourth place heading into the Finals competition, but the team still has a shot of overtaking St. Joseph’s and moving into third place.

“It’s not all about winning, of course,” said Whitaker, “But for a new team, I would gladly take third place. If all the people who made Finals are able to show up, we would certainly have a good chance of moving in front of St. Joe’s and into third.”  

Despite the season being a difficult one, SLUH was still able to send five students to the Finals competition. Senior Ben Walsh qualified as an individual in Humorous / Serious Interpretation category and with sophomore Nick George in Duet Acting. Carter Fortman qualified for Finals in Extemporaneous and with senior Albert Harold in Duet Improv. Lastly, junior Donovan Meacham qualified in the Poetry category. 

SLUH was unable to produce a Finals qualifier in Prose, Radio Broadcast, Storytelling, and Original Oratory, which is not ideal but certainly is understandable given the state of the team.

“It’s great if you can have a finalist in every category, which is the downside for us,” said Whitaker. “But it’s a new team, it’s a building year, so the fact that we are even competing is a good thing, and everybody’s learning a lot.”

Though only a few members of the team qualified for Finals, the rest of the team plans to watch the Feb. 7 competition on Zoom, something Whitaker believes will hopefully prepare them for future competitions.

“All of the students will go and watch the Finals competition, because they really can learn so much from watching other people,” said Whitaker.