HIGH SCHOOLS Fitch, Boardman, Mooney place 2-4 in state speech tournament

Local students battled schools statewide in 12 categories.
By PAUL WHEATLEY
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Three Mahoning Valley speech and debate teams fared well during the 74th Ohio Speech League State Tournament.
Austintown Fitch, Boardman and Cardinal Mooney high schools placed second, third and fourth respectively as overall team sweepstakes winners.
Fitch edged Boardman, 54 points to 53. Cardinal Mooney scored 46, and Wooster captured the state title with 62. The competition was at Boardman High School Friday and Saturday and featured nearly 1,000 students from 150 schools.
"We were looking at a semi-rebuilding year," said former Fitch coach Ken Carano who retired to become a state representative. "We knew it was going to be a very tight race."
Categories: Schools battled in 12 categories such as foreign extemporaneous, in which Boardman's David Lancet took third. In this category, students do a presentation based on one of three topic cards they draw, each bearing a question. They have 30 minutes to prepare a seven-minute speech in which their communications skills and ability to answer the question are judged.
Six judges rule on teams in the final round. The highest and lowest scores from the six judges in each round are thrown out.
"The important factor is they have to answer the question," said Carano.
Other notable winners were Lonette Clinkscale of Boardman and Staci MacDougall of Fitch, who took first place in the prose-poetry and oratorical categories respectively.
Other local high schools participating included Girard, Howland, Liberty, Lisbon, Niles, Ursuline, Warren Harding, Warren John F. Kennedy, West Branch and Wilson.
Carano praised the Boardman schools for their outstanding facilities and organization.
Carano, who noted that Fitch won the state title eight times in 12 years, said some coaches of other schools are former members of Fitch teams.