On Feb. 18-19, the DGS speech team culminated their regular season with a second place finish in individual events at the Illinois High School Association state finals and a sixth place finish in Performance in the Round.

The team had five individuals place including Gwen Royle in Prose, Sydney Richardson in Original Comedy, Samantha Wiggins in Original Oratory and Informative Speaking, Ryan Rosignal in Dramatic Interpretation and Faith Nelson in radio. Royle was also the state champion in Prose Reading.

During the 2020-2021 season, the speech team competed virtually and was able to return to in person tournaments this year. DGS English teacher and head Speech coach Justin Matkovich said how the transition from virtual to in person competitions has impacted students.

̈I think one of the biggest changes from last year was that with being online it was easier to fit speech around schedules. Speech is a commitment no matter how you look at it. Being at school for a whole Saturday is a lot different than checking in online for a couple rounds from your home,” Matkovich said.

Senior and state champion in Prose, Gwen Royle, also said the transition from virtual to in person tournaments affected her.

¨It was pretty nerve wracking to go from being in my room and performing on a computer screen to actually being with my competitors again. That being said, it’s a lot more fun and it’s great to have connections with people that you see every weekend, which I really appreciated about in person tournaments,” Royle said.

Matkovich also said how having in person tournaments this year compared to virtual tournaments last year reaffirmed students’ passions for speech and spending time with their friends helped motivate them.

“Last year, one of the things we missed about speech was the social aspect of it; hanging out with your friends between performances and things like that. The students who never knew what speech was like, specifically last year’s freshman, this year’s sophomores actually getting to be around people was probably a really good motivating factor to do well in speech,” Matkovich said.

Matkovich also said that the leadership displayed by the seniors played an integral role in the team’s success this season.

“We had a ton of great seniors on this team. This group of seniors even stood out last year in pandemic speech as being a good group of role models. I think they were excited to have a season like this, I think part of that excitement led to them having a really great season and I couldn be prouder of what they did these last two years,” Matkovich said.

Senior Tyler Engel competed on the PIR team at state. Although he was new to speech this year, he enjoyed the sense of community that speech provided him with.

“I feel like I was able to catch up pretty well and it was just an experience that I wish I found my freshman year. It’s a great thing to be a part of. It was even great to join as a senior because I was still able to be successful, had people to talk to and made new friends and it was great,”Engel said.

The DGS Speech Team had seven members qualify for the NSDA tournament in Louisville, Kentucky and will round out their season in June.