Niwot forensics shines at state speech festival

Senior AJ Metlay wins Maggie Long Award

It’s been a highly successful season for the Niwot forensics team and now they have some state hardware to show for it. At the CHSAA Speech & Debate State Festival held last month at Heritage High in Littleton, Cougars brought home six medals, including first place in Creative Storytelling and a co-championship in Public Forum Debate.

“This is the best we’ve even done at the state tournament,” co-captain AJ Metlay said of the team’s performance. ”We’ve had a lot of placements, and that hasn’t happened as long as I’ve been here. We had the first ever in speech and debate history co-champions for PF, because they were both so good. It really shows how good our team is.”

Senior Laura Guentchev was responsible for two of those medals, including the first place in Creative Storytelling. She also finished fourth in Impromptu Speaking, just ahead of teammate Subhangi Bhatt in fifth place.

Debate partners Braden Wade and Benjamin Goff shared the championship with junior teammates Jayden Johnson and Nicholas Valin. Another junior, Luke Hair, took second in Lincoln Douglas Debate.

Metlay rounded out the medalists with a third-place finish in Poetry Interpretation. The senior was also the recipient of the festival’s inaugural Maggie Long Award for the student who best embodies the “spirit” of speech and debate in the state of Colorado.

“I feel like she has the highest amount of energy and passion about forensics,” fourth-year Niwot forensics coach William Pankonin said. Pankonin submitted Metlay’s name for the award, which was voted on by tournament participants. “She talks to people about speech and forensics and they appreciate that. She’s always willing to make new friends at tournaments, and that’s been ongoing all year for AJ, so I think at state people realized that, and it’s a fantastic compliment for her.”

Metlay said she was not expecting the honor, but was very touched by the recognition from her peers.

“When my name got called, I had one of those Oscar moments,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it for a little bit. I started crying and messed up my eyeliner. It was definitely the highlight of my life so far. It’s really nice because my personal values really align with that. It’s what I value most in my life and what I consider to be living a good life—connecting with other people and making things better for them….So it was really nice to know that I was succeeding in that.”

This year marked Niwot’s first time in the annual festival, which serves as the statewide speech and debate tournament for schools with enrollment of less than 1,300 students. Neighboring schools Silver Creek and Longmont also sent teams for the first time, bringing the total field to about 40 schools. A larger statewide CHSAA tournament is held annually in March.

“It’s a 4A tournament and we’re a 4A school, and we get to then compete against other schools our size, and it allows for more opportunities for our students,” Pankonin said. “Many schools made the decision to go to state at the Festival level and I think it was the right decision to make.”

The festival wins capped off what both Metlay and her coach characterized as “the best season in years.”

“My main goal from sophomore year on was to leave the team better than I found it,” Metlay said. “My freshman year seemed like Hogwarts—everything was so magical—but by my sophomore year, stuff started going downhill with the team, the leadership wasn’t as strong, there was a lot less of the fun aspect and also competitive wins. So my main goal was to get back up to the level of freshman year, and I think I’ve surpassed that a lot so I’m definitely happy with where the team is right now.”

They also agreed that much of that success is due to the efforts of this year’s leadership team, composed of Metlay, who captains the interpretive events; Hanna Alexander, debate captain; Evan Roberts, speech captain, and Jon Lee, head captain.

“Every year, the captains bring their own set of ingredients or tools to the school year,” Pankonin said. “This group I’ve coached now since they were freshman, and maybe because of that, maybe we’ve just had really good activities, and our communication has been really good because of the history we have together.”

A modest Lee acknowledged the team’s success and said this year’s seniors had taken a “different” approach to preparing for competition, and it seemed to be paying off in wins.

“Not to brag about our captainships, but we’ve been doing our best to engage ourselves in teaching novices and trying to do as many activities and practices in order for them to improve and do their best,” he said. “Our previous members —members of the class last year — they’ve been improving so much that they’ve been placing at every tournament. It’s been great for me to have the opportunity to see them improving so much.”

Lee and Metlay were also both excited about the future of the team and feel they will be leaving it with a good balance between the debate and interp specialists and the tools to build on this year’s success.

“I trust the people who are in this class to be able to run the team next year,” Metlay said. “I feel like with the group we have now on the team, it’s a really strong dynamic, probably the best I’ve seen with any team.”