Tufts' mock trial program this weekend won second place at the Opening Round Championship Series, earning them a bid to compete at the National Championship Tournament for the first time. This marks the program's highest-ever placing in its history.
The program sent one of its four teams to the American Mock Trial Association's Opening Round of the Championship Series in Boston. The team placed second out of the 24 competing colleges and universities.
The six top-placed teams in the tournament advanced to the National Championship Tournament held from April 16-18 in Memphis, Tenn.
"Quite frankly, right now we're floored," senior Rebekah Sokol, co-president of the mock trial program and co-captain of the winning team, said. "To rank second in that competitive of a field is fantastic and better than we could have hoped for."
Junior Jonathan Lautin, the other co-president of the program and co-captain of the team, applauded the team's achievement and anticipated the team's success at the National Championship Tournament.
"I am incredibly proud of everyone on the team who performed so well, and I'm sure that we're going to do great once we get to Memphis," Lautin said.
Boston University hosted the opening round at the Suffolk County Courthouse. Competing teams hailed from around the New England area, according Sokol.
The Boston competition is one of eight opening round championship series tournaments held across the country in March. The Tufts program in 2008 advanced from the regional tournament to the Opening Round Championship Series for the first time and last year sent two teams to compete at that level.
This year, four teams qualified for the national opening round and one of the teams advanced to the National Championship Tournament for the first time.
The mock trial program captains expressed their excitement about the team's new milestone and credited group dynamics for the team's success.
"This is the farthest we've ever gone and this is one of the best teams we've ever fielded," Sokol said. "We're working together better and more cohesively than any team yet. We're looking forward to a really great showing at nationals."
The second place finish at the opening round tournament has given the team a confidence boost going into the National Championship Tournament, according to team member Nicholas LoCastro, a sophomore.
"I think that it's really helpful that we placed second," LoCastro said. "The teams at this regional were Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, most of the Ivies pretty much, and to come in ahead of all of them will give us good footing in the national tournament. To see that we can hold our own will definitely help us in the next round."
LoCastro also received an Outstanding Witness Award at this weekend's tournament.
Brown, Boston, Harvard, Princeton and Yale Universities were the other schools that this weekend earned bids to the National Championship Tournament.
Although Tufts' mock trial program will be competing against unfamiliar teams, Lautin is confident of the team's ability to pull off another great performance.
"We're going to be seeing a lot of new competition," he said. "There are some amazing teams there so we're not expecting necessarily to win but we know we can match up with every team we see."
LoCastro believes the mock trial program's latest achievement illustrates the great progress that it has made over the past few years.
"Tufts mock trial has only been around for a handful of years, and over the last few years, we've grown from a team that didn't place all that highly in these competitions and now we rank in the top 48 teams in the country," he said. "That definitely means a lot to me as well as the rest of the team."
Sokol voiced the shock that the team is still experiencing at this win. "This is just huge," she said.
Captain of another of the program's teams, sophomore Taylor Bates, expressed his enthusiasm for the winning team. "It's fantastic, and this is absolutely great for mock trial," he said.
Lautin added that this milestone is a major step for the mock trial program in terms of publicity. "It is a big step forward … it really puts us on the map," Lautin said.
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Saumya Vaishampayan contributed reporting to this article.
