A swath of Haines high schoolers brought home top finishes from wrestling and drama, debate and forensics tournaments last weekend.
All members of the Glacier Bards speech team made it to the final round at their tournament in Skagway last weekend.
“This is the best tournament we’ve had since I’ve started coaching,” coach Hannah Bochart said.
Stella Ordonez made it to the final rounds in all three of her events. She took first place in solo acting along with a command performance for a scene where she played a bride who on her wedding day begins to think she made a bad decision and has a subsequent mental breakdown.
Ordonez said the first time she performed the scene at a different tournament, she didn’t make it to the finals. She said she refined the role and made it more nuanced. “I was so surprised and happy,” she said of winning first place. “I was happy I got a command performance. That was my goal for the season. To get that in the second meet was really cool.”
A command performance is one staged in front of all the participants and judges at the meet.
Nathan Haas took second place with a dramatic interpretation of a scene from the popular Netflix animated comedy BoJack Horseman. In the scene, BoJack, a washed up actor who is also a talking horse that walks upright, eulogizes his mother.
“I like it because it borders this line between funny and sad,” Haas said. “One of my favorite lines is the opener: ‘No one ever tells you that when your mom dies you get a free churro.’ It actually did get a few laughs, which I was really happy about.”
Tanna Dixon and Dylan Chapell took second place in duet acting. They performed a comedic scene from a Shel Silverstein play about a husband who confronted his wife who has become a bag lady. “It’s kind of dark and weird but in a funny way,” Bochart said.
Ordonez and Sally Chapell took third in duet acting.
Dixon took third place in extemporaneous commentary. In that event, competitors must choose a random topic and prepare a 20-minute speech without notes. “She’s been doing this event all of last year,” Bochart said. “Every event she’ll be about one point off from making it to the final round. This year she made it and took home third place.”
Dixon also took fourth place in solo acting.
Eli Williamson placed fifth with an informational speech about the history of political parties in the United States, and how they’ve changed today.
In wrestling, junior Wesley Verhamme took third at a tournament where he competed against large and small schools, putting him in a good position to win the state tournament, coach Ben Bard said.
“Until his last match he wrestled only big school division one kids from his weight class,” Bard said. “He pinned all of them, all four in a row, in a span of four or five hours which was pretty awesome.”
In the match that put him in third place, Verhamme defeated a wrestler who took first place at the Anchorage Christian Schools (ACS) small schools’ tournament in Anchorage two weeks ago.
“He ended up beating him pretty significantly by four or five points. Taking first at ACS means you’re top dog in your weight class for small schools in your state. It’s looking pretty good for our state meet,” Bard said of Verhamme’s win against Eielson High School’s ACS tournament winner Nephi Tidwell.
Verhamme said he expected to lose the match against the number one seed. In the Haines High School gym on Wednesday he refreshed his phone, waiting for the standings to update. “I know I have a target on my head,” Verhamme said. “I beat the first seed so now people are going to want to get better and get stronger to beat me.”
Verhamme said he plans to polish his ankle pick, a wrestling takedown he used to defeat all of his opponents last weekend. Despite pinning most of his opponents early, some of his matches lasted several rounds where he became quite tired. He says he needs to improve his conditioning to be competitive at the state tournament.
“When it comes time for that third-round match, it’s going to happen,” Verhamme said. “State’s for the best of the best and I’m not just going to be able to pin my way through so I really want to work on my conditioning.”
Verhamme is wrestling in the 215-pound weight division.
The Glacier Bears volleyball squad this week ended their season in Wrangell this week. They lost to Wrangell at the start of the regional tournament. That put them in the loser’s bracket where they defeated Skagway during their next set. They finally lost to Petersburg, which eliminated them from the tournament.