Words: Ashley Berry

Monday, March 23, Centennial High School’s Mock Trial team traveled to Annapolis for the Circuit Championships. The team consists of 13 Centennial students: Ben Goldstein, Abby Kim, Danny Gupta, Hadeel Hamoud, Pujit Mehrotra, Katie Cox, Simone John-Vanderpool, Natalie Jennings, Becky Kaminsky, Kayleigh Hassan, Jinia Sarkar, Elise Lin and Shardul Rakshit.

The team competed against the #2 team in Anne Arundel County, the Severn School, and won with the tie point that is awarded by the judge to the team, qualifying us for round 2. Tonight, Tuesday, March 24, the Mock Trial team will compete against Severna Park High School and hopefully win.

The team has been preparing this case since mid-November and started competing against other Howard County Mock Trial teams at the end of January. Abby Kim, the co-captain and chief defense attorney of Mock Trial, said, “We’ve spend about 10 to 15 hours per week practicing and competing in competition and I believe that this intense level of commitment has allowed us to reach the level of success that we have.”

“My favorite part of the yesterday’s trial was the moment after we heard that we had won. We were so overjoyed and each person was so excited about what the team, as a whole, had accomplished,” said Kim.

Kristin Shipp, the advisor of Mock Trial, said, “Great leadership and teamwork has definitely led to our success this year.  We have strong captains and senior teammates who have a natural passion for mock trial and work tirelessly to prepare and practice.”

“Tonight we hope to keep doing what we have been doing all season. We are prepared and hope to showcase all of our hard work!” said Shipp.