March 25, 2019

L&C’s Knighton and Quick earn 3rd place honors at National Speech Championship

Lewis & Clark’s Ally Knighton and Brady Quick each earned 3rd place finishes at the National Speech Championship.

Just one weekend after its parliamentary debate team finished in the final four nationally, Lewis & Clark’s forensics team continued its strong nationals season with an outstanding performance at the National Speech Championship, held March 23-24 at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. Ally Knighton (CAS ’21) advanced to five final rounds of competition, finishing in 3rd place in Informative Speaking, while Brady Quick (CAS ’19) advanced to two final rounds, placing 3rd in Persuasive Speaking.

The National Speech Championship is a unique individual events tournament where each program is invited to send two entries in each event. Knighton and Quick were the only representatives of Lewis & Clark at the tournament, but they did not let the small size of the contingent keep them from experiencing success throughout the weekend. Out of the 12 entries at the tournament, 10 advanced to elimination rounds at the tournament and six eventually made it to the final round of competition. 

The final round results were as follows:

Knighton: 3rd in Informative Speaking, 4th in After-Dinner Speaking, 6th in Communication Analysis, 6th in Dramatic Interpretation

Quick: 3rd in Persuasive Speaking

The two students also teamed up for Duo Interpretation where they made finals and finished in 5th place. Despite being smaller in size than most schools at the tournament, Lewis & Clark finished as the 7th place school at the tournament. Knighton also tied the tournament’s record for most events in final round competition.

The rest of the individual events squad will join Knighton and Quick in nationals competition at the National Individual Events Tournament, to be held in Tuscaloosa, AL April 5-7.