A Moment Years in the Making
Written by Jenny Wiland
“Earning the next bid to Nationals, from Hillsdale—”
Cheers erupted from the team, drowning out the rest of the announcer’s sentence. We jumped and hugged and shouted as applause from other teams rang in the background. Six teams from that mock trial tournament earned a spot at the National Championship Tournament (NCT), but our reaction was the loudest for one simple reason: this was our first time. We’d just made Hillsdale history.
“There was lots of screaming,” Abby Davis, ’25, says about that moment. “It was loud. Everyone was shouting, ‘We did it!’”
Hillsdale’s Mock Trial program began in 2010 and has become more competitive over the years. Currently, we field three teams with up to ten competitors each. Students act as attorneys and witnesses in a simulated courtroom setting. We prepare direct and cross-examinations from witness statements and evidence contained in a case packet provided by the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) at the beginning of each fall. Past cases have included everything from pesticide poisoning at a winery to the rampage of a chimpanzee named Elias. This year’s case involves bar owner Dakota Sutcliffe, rendered destitute by COVID-19 shutdowns, who allegedly committed arson to collect an insurance payout.
Once teams have crafted their arguments and narratives surrounding the case, we face other teams in tournaments, switching between prosecution and defense each round. Two judges—sometimes even actual court judges—score teams from 1 to 10 on each part of the trial, and whichever team receives the most points gets that judge’s ballot. After four rounds of competition, teams are ranked based on how many ballots they received.
While competitors are scored individually, it takes a whole team to prepare and present their side of the trial. Between the necessity of teamwork, shared passion for the activity, and lots of practice time, it’s no wonder how close team members grow throughout the year. “I really couldn’t imagine mock trial without all the bonds I’ve made,” says Justin Lee, ’24. “My friends make the experience, 100 percent.” But the competition itself remains essential in mock trial: “Part of it’s an adrenaline rush—you never know what’s coming at you. You just pour hours of work into preparation for it, and hope that it’s not going to go south. Like any competitive activity, the victories drive a growing and continuing desire to pursue that activity.”
While Hillsdale’s teams often earn trophies from invitational tournaments in the fall, the real glory comes from official, AMTA-run tournaments in the spring. Teams move through three levels of official tournaments: Regionals, the Opening Round Championship Series (ORCS), and the National Championship Tournament (NCT). For Regionals and ORCS, there are multiple tournaments across the country, but only six teams out of twenty or more at each tournament will earn a spot, called a “bid,” to the next level. Hillsdale has sent teams to ORCS every year since 2013, and we’ve even come close to Nationals a few times before. But each time we needed just one ballot from the last round of ORCS to advance to the NCT, we encountered a strong team and lost both ballots—that is, until this year.
We knew this year was different even before our first round at ORCS. The cases we have to argue switch between civil and criminal charges every other year. While we’ve previously sent two teams to ORCS—the maximum number of teams a single school can send—in civil years, this was the first time we sent both our A and B teams to ORCS in a criminal year.
However, the obstacles our A team faced turned out to be strikingly similar to those of last year. Last year, we’d been painfully close to earning a bid to Nationals, but our A team faced Tufts University in the final round—a powerful team that’s ranked top 10 in the nation. We only needed one ballot from that round to advance, but we were defeated completely.
When I heard our A team would hit Tufts in the final round again this year, I expected them to be nervous. Yet when I saw them, everyone was brimming with excitement. Team members spent the night before the round preparing, rehearsing material with each other in their pajamas in hotel rooms.
When morning came, the team performed and argued better than they ever had. They fought tooth and nail with a top 10 team—and finally secured that one ballot.
“It was pretty great,” says Mattis Belloncle, ’22. Now a senior and team captain, Mattis has been competing on the mock trial team since his freshman year. “Having not had that moment three years running, and knowing that Hillsdale hadn’t had that moment ever before, it felt like the culmination of a lot of work.”
“It was a lot of validation that what we do is good,” Justin agrees. “That we’re good at it. That the work we’ve put into mock trial, the hours and hours of preparation, really was all worth it.”
In addition to the team’s bid to Nationals, multiple students earned individual awards for outstanding performance. Two freshmen received awards: Abby Davis as an attorney and Njomëza Pema for her witness role. Senior Jean-Luc Belloncle secured an attorney award as well—his fifth total award across his four years on the team.
“It felt good to know I can compete at that level,” says Abby. She had previously earned awards before at invitationals, but this was her first time getting an award at an official AMTA tournament.
While the team has more than earned the right to bask in victory, they’ve still got a lot of work to do to prepare for Nationals. AMTA always releases a new case packet for the NCT. This year’s Nationals will be held in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on the weekend of April 8, giving teams less than three weeks to prepare and polish a completely unfamiliar set of materials.
“Right now, I mostly just feel excited,” says Mattis. “Maybe that will wear off a little bit as the work gets going, but even doing the preliminary work—I’m making my flashcards and everything—it feels really, really exciting to be able to be at this point, looking at a new case.”
Watch the team’s authentic reaction to the news below. Video courtesy of Dr. Kirstin Kiledal.
Jenny Wiland, ’23, plans to study psychology and graphic design. She loves her cat, dark chocolate, and writing stories, especially science fiction and fantasy.
Published in March 2022