Bronx Prep Speech: Bigger and Better

11-13-2010 (Fordham Prep, Bronx NY)

The Bronx Prep Speech Team posted its first championship win of the season with a 1st place finish in Duo Interpretation by Team Captain Tiffany McLarty and her partner, Monica Lindsay. Also, Simone Johnson, a newcomer to the Speech Team, broke into Finals and won 4th Place in JV OI (Junior Varsity Prose/Poetry) - an impressive finish in a field of over 80 competitors. The Team also won 9th Place in the Team Sweepstakes award, which includes the scores of the team's top competitors and ranks the schools against one another for their overall finish in the tournament. This means that on Saturday, Bronx Prep was represented as a Top 10 Speech Team in New York City for the 2nd time this season.

In addition to the aforementioned accolades, BP Speech fans can celebrate the breadth of the squad representing Bronx Prep at Fordham. A whopping 17 entries squeezed into an uptown Bx15 bus to make the short trip up Third Avenue to the campus of Fordham University. The team smashed its previous record of 11 entries, set at the tournament three weeks earlier at Regis High School in Manhattan. This is big, exciting evidence that the Bronx Prep Performing Arts Academy is yielding big time results for more and more students every week.

Several team members were making their season debut and deserve their own shout-out. Congratulations to Clementina Nyarko, Rose Wirekoh and Melanie Nyarko who all broke into their seasons in big ways, posting first and second place finishes in their rounds of JV OI.

These newbies have a lot to aim for, as modeled by the members of the team who not only landed in finals, but finished high enough to earn the coveted prize at every speech tournament: a half-qualification for the New York State Championships. Tiffany and Monica (who was competing for the first time ever in Duo Interpretation) and Simone (in only her second career tournament) are now all one strong finish away from earning their spot at the State Championships in April.

They'll get their shot, along with the other top members of Bronx Prep's squad, this upcoming weekend at the prestigious Villiger Tournament, on the campus of St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. The competition will be much stronger, drawing top speakers from Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Florida, but the reloaded team of 10-11 will try to recapture the magic and glory of the 08-09 team that boasted not one, but two championships at this national-caliber tournament.