Resurrection Christian Captures 3A Speech & Debate State Championship

NIWOT – In just the second year of having a sweepstakes series, Resurrection Christian took home the team title in the Colorado High School Activities Association’s 3A Speech and Debate State Championship Friday and Saturday at Niwot High School.

In having the highest combined speech and debate scores, the Cougars become just the second team in CHSAA history to win the sweepstakes, after Eagle Valley did so a year ago. Battle Mountain finished runner-up this season.

Jacob Cromley and Elyott Siffring were just two of the four individual champions crowned from Resurrection Christian, with each winning two events and defending one of their championships from a year ago.

Cromley repeated as a champion in creative storytelling, while also becoming the first-ever Cougar to win the program oral interpretation event.

While Cromley has experience being on stage, the nervousness that was apparent by the shallow breaths and bowing of his head as names were called during the award ceremony made it look like it was his first time up there. His nervousness nearly overcame him by the time his name was announced a second time, though, and he nearly fell over from pure joy. Despite repeating, the victories just continue to get that much sweeter for him.

“Winning gets better every time,” Cromley said. “I am so excited right now, it was incredible.”

Cromley later described what it was like trying to hold it together as names were called before him.

“I’m just progressively getting happier and happier,” Cromley said. “When they said second place and it wasn’t me… it was crazy.”

Siffring didn’t quite have the emotional showcase that Cromley had, but you could tell that repeating as a champion meant the world to her.

Winning the impromptu and extemporaneous speaking events, the hours-upon-hours of work that Siffring put into her preparation was finally rewarded.

“It’s so exciting,” Siffring said. “When you pour your heart into this and you get to work with all the people in this activity, it’s all just so gratifying. Especially when your hard work pays off while you’re doing something that you love to do.”

It became apparent Saturday night as state champion after state champion was called, that it didn’t matter what school the competitor was from. As each of the names were being announced, they were met with an outpouring of support from all of the competitors on stage.

“When you pour so much into your team, winning means so much more,” Siffring said. “A lot of us who are getting a state championship, or are placing high, are also people who are teaching our novices. There’s a lot of mentorship that comes with speech and debate.”

That mentorship certainly paid off. Joining the Cougars in the state championship record books were teammates Elijah Fauth – who won for humorous interpretation – and Evan Simmons, who won in dramatic interpretation.

There are also a ton of other amazing competitors on coach Levi Smith’s team.

“I’m extremely proud of what they’ve done,” Smith said. “They came into the event entirely together, and they competed together. Even though it’s an individual sport, we truly take it as a team one day at a time. It’s like organized chaos in the room, but it’s amazing.”

Cromley and Siffring weren’t the only two to become back-to-back champions. University’s Jaylee Morado joined the duo in winning her second-consecutive informative speaking championship.

Beyond that, this season quickly became a competition of firsts for schools and competitors alike, as there were some first time victors this year.

Eagle Valley’s Audrey Tatro was one of them, as she won the school’s first congressional debate title. She credits Taylor Swift for being her inspiration.

“I think that any female artist and anyone that has that big of a following is really an inspiration,” Tatro said of the icon who has been making her fair share of postseason appearances as of late. “She has this one song called ‘The Man’ that always talks about men winning positions like this and just to be a female in an underrepresented event that is sometimes overpowered by men, it just feels nice to come out on top.”

While Swift might have been on her mind, it was the work that Tatro put in prior to the event that truly elevated her above the competition.

“I don’t think people understand how much time goes into congress,” Tatro said. “I’ve probably spent over four hours a day for the past two weeks just prepping. It’s really about strategy in rounds. So, it just means a lot to come out on top and have all my hard work pay off.”

Rounding out the rest of the debate winners are: Dillon Rankin of Silver Creek in the one-on-one value debate, Eva Isaacs of Battle Mountain in the Lincoln-Douglas debate and Battle Mountain’s Ilya Liev and Carys Highum, who won the school’s first-ever public forum debate.

The rest of the speech winners are: Phoenix Wellbaum out of Battle Mountain, who won the original oratory, Shanti Harrison out of Dawson who won Poetry Interpretation —  winning for her second time after she did so in 2021 — and Tagan Garcia and Abigail Conner out of University who won the duo interpretation event which they also previously won in 2022.