For the tenth consecutive year, the Forensics Team, led by coach Rusty McCrady, won the Montgomery County Championship held on March 19 and 20. Unlike in previous championship victories, the team was able to win by the widest margin in league history, having a total of 11 students place fifth or higher in events such as prose, acting and informative speaking.


 

McCrady described this victory as “an unprecedented achievement and absolutely outstanding performance by the entire team.”

WJ has an extremely rich history involving many extracurricular activities like the Forensics Team, arguably one of the most dominant teams at WJ. Dating all the way back to 1990, the team has placed second, third or fourth in the County League until finally winning their first championship in 2000. The team followed this championship victory in 2000 with ten more in a row, including this year.

Coming into this season, the entire team, as well as McCrady, was very confident in the team’s ability to have another successful season capped off with a County Championship victory.

“We should win [referring to this season],” said McCrady. “We already have 4 people in the top 16 from last year.”

Despite having no official team ranking, even outsiders not directly affiliated with the team, including many students at WJ, expected them to repeat. Although Blair, WJ’s largest rival, and Poolesville had very formidable teams, they still were not able to prevail over WJ’s very experienced and accomplished team. The team proved early on that they were a legitimate championship contender after dominating their last regular season meet at Blake High School by having a WJ student win first place in every category.

This year’s team, composed of 10 upperclassmen, many of whom played a significant role in last year’s championship win, were once again a huge part of this year’s regular dominance and capture of the County Championship.

Junior Matt Krug, winner of first place in Humor and Acting, second in Readers’ Theater with junior Mariel Berlin-Fischler, fifth in Drama and winner of the Excellence Award, is one of many veterans not at all surprised by the team’s success.

“McCrady has left a great legacy at WJ,” said Krug. “Expect us to be ever better next year because we’re returning a lot of strong juniors who were very successful this year.”