Maine South Mock Trial Team Wins State Title

Maine South High School won its first Illinois State Mock Trial title and qualified for the Mock Trial National competition after competing against 45 high school teams from across the state during an event held March 18-19 at the University of Illinois - Springfield.

This was the team's 12th appearance in the state finals competition since 1999 under coach Donald Mcarthur-Self.

The team will now compete at the Mock Trial National Competition May 17-20 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Just one team per state qualifies for the national competition.

"We put in so much work to reach this goal, including working over this past summer," said senior Sara Mietus.

"When we won we were all just shocked," said senior Maggie Woods. "I knew we had worked hard enough but since this had never happened in Maine South history it was just unbelievable."

The team competed in two preliminary round trials at state, representing the prosecution and defense, respectively. In the first round, Maine South's prosecution competed against De La Salle High School's defense. In the second preliminary round Maine South's defense team competed against Hinsdale South's prosecution. In addition, students took a 45-question law exam.

Scores from the first two trials and the law exam determined the eight teams that would compete in the final round.

The finals round included Maine South, College Preparatory School of America, St. Charles North, Normal West, Hinsdale Central, Whitney Young, York and De La Salle. In the finals, Maine South's defense was paired against College Preparatory School of America's prosecution.

"The Maine South team is very hardworking and very well-balanced," says coach Mcarthur-Self. "The students have put in between 6 and 14 hours per week since November working on the case and competing in various regional tournaments. Clearly their hard work paid off, but I think the greatest contribution to their success has been their selflessness and teamwork. Some other teams won many more individual awards through the season and at the state competition, often with a few standout students who carried their team. We are fortunate to have a group of students who worked well together, set egos aside, helped and assisted each other, and didn't always win the individual awards but worked together to earn team points. Winning was extremely emotional for all of us. We believed after our final trial that we had definitely been strong enough to place second or third, but since other teams had more individual awards, when we weren't named as second place the students all assumed we didn't place at all. Then they called out 'Maine South' as the state champion and we were all stunned and overwhelmed."

The team at state included 12th graders Maggie Woods and Sara Mietus; 11th graders Charlotte King, Anthony Benbenek, Mia Thurman and Oliver Marszalek; and 10th graders Charlotte Chapman and Kyra Demeros.

Other members of the Maine South Mock Trial team include 11th grader Sasha Wolf and 9th graders Antonia Argionis, Katie Johnston and Camilla Bartoszuk.

The team is coached by Donald Mcarthur-Self and Elizabeth Terpstra.