Tufts Mock Trial (TMT) took first place for the second year in a row at the Fourth Annual Mumbo Jumbo Invitational tournament held on campus earlier this month.
Senior Samuel Sazer and sophomore Brian Pilchik captained the team, which dominated the tournament with a 7?1 final score.
Although TMT consists of four teams each with between six and eight members, only one Tufts team competed in the tournament.
Tufts took home four individual awards. Both captains of the winning team received Outstanding Attorney Awards, and new sophomore team member Samantha Sokol secured a Witness Award, according to Pilchik.
Tufts students also took part in the bye?buster team, which consists of members who are not competing as part of a pre?formed team but are available to take part in a makeshift team when an uneven number of teams arrive to the competition. This team consisted largely of TMT members and finished with a 6?2 record.
Daniel Madwed, who was part of the bye?buster team, won an Outstanding Witness Award.
Co?President of TMT Nicholas LoCastro was pleased with the results of Mumbo Jumbo as well as the rest of the team's results this season, which included a third?place finish at a tournament at the University of New Hampshire.
"Not only have I felt that the newer members are learning quite a bit, but we've placed pretty well in the tournaments thus far, so I'm very happy with that," LoCastro, a senior, said.
TMT has organized the Mumbo Jumbo tournament for the past four years. Tufts did not place at the first tournament in 2008, took third in 2009 and has taken first place for the past two years.
Thirteen teams attended this year's tournament, including teams from Columbia University, Princeton University and Boston College.
Every team participates in four rounds, each of which is scored by two judges. At the end of each round, the judges individually tally their scores for each team and then award a point to whichever team achieved the highest score, according to Pilchik. At the end of all four rounds, the team who has accumulated the most points takes first place.
"It was actually really exciting," Pilchik said. "In our first round, we split with [Wellesley College]. So one judge gave it to us, one judge gave it to them."
"I was thinking maybe we go four and four, something like that, and then we won every single ballot afterwards," he continued.
Mumbo Jumbo is just one of the several invitationals in which TMT competes during their fall season, which is considered a practice round for their spring competitions.
"In the fall, we have random teams, more or less," Pilchik said. "We try and balance new members and old members and that sort of thing, but they're what we call un?stacked teams; there's no team that's made up of all the good people."
TMT has high aspirations for the spring season. After attending the National Championship Tournament for the first time two years ago and securing third place last year, they hope to achieve equal or greater success at this year's tournament.
"I expect we'll get to Nationals," Pilchik said. "We've been doing better each year. ... I'm hoping to get as many teams as possible into [the American Mock Trial Association's Opening Round Championship Series]."
