Academic UIL teams to compete at regionals

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Parker Nolan

Medalists from the school’s second place district academic team pose in the commons. Regional qualifiers will compete at Prosper High School next weekend.

Joe Cross, Staff Reporter

After competing at the district 15-5A meet last weekend, the advancing students in the school’s academic programs are headed to Prosper High School for regionals on April 7-8. These programs include the speech and debate, ready writing, and computer science teams, and 18 students advanced to regionals after the team took second place overall to Highland Park.

The school took home eight first place finishes in the competition, with district champions being junior Anna Stockton in Ready Writing, junior Hannah Ortega in Editorial Writing, senior Samuel Ma in Computer Applications, junior Samuel Bell in Computer Science, sophomore Kelsey Carroll in Feature Writing, junior Nick Smith in Headline Writing, junior Anna Rouse in Informative Speaking, and senior Ellie Hager in Lincoln-Douglas Debate. Hager was also named the top speaker for the district meet.

“I’m excited to compete at regionals with my other LD debaters because we all work together against rival schools and are eager to move on to the next level of competition,” Hager said.

The journalism, speech and debate, and computer science teams took home the district team championships, while the current events, number sense, science, calculator application, social studies, and spelling and vocab teams all took second place overall. Journalism and computer science did especially well, with writer Hannah Ortega qualifying for five different events in journalism, and computer science taking the top four spots in the district.

Stockton said she was surprised by her win in Ready Writing.

“I really didn’t think I’d get too far, much less end up placing first in districts,” Stockton said. “I’m really excited to have made it this far and can’t wait to give it another shot at regionals.”

Here are the full results from district.