Minneota third in Monte speech meet

Emma Lipinski and Katie Walerius took home first-place honors in the Montevideo Thunder Hawk Speech Invitational on Saturday.
This was the first "live" virtual meet of the season. Previously, the participants taped their speeches and were not able to see the other teams live performances.
"The kids did great with this, and it will be good practice moving forward as subsections, sections, and state will also be virtual and live as well," said Minneota coach Kim Gades. "We only had eight competitors, but all of them placed in the top four in their respective categories."
Minneota, which has only one senior (Walerius) on the team this year, placed third as a team behind larger teams Luverne, which was first and Russell-Tyler-Ruthton, which placed second.
"We are a smaller team this year, so it's been nice to place in the top three the past couple of weeks," said Gades.
Lipinski placed first in Storytelling, while Walerius was awarded first place in Original Oratory.
Thomas Belaen came in second and Joey Clark third in the Storytelling category.
Joe Voit was third in Extemporaneous Speaking, Cora Fischer was third in Great Speeches, Reagan Bierschenk was third in Informative, and Wyatt Pohlen placed fourth in Discussion.
The team also has a new assistant coach, Nicole Berning, who teaches English at the middle/high school level.
"She had been a great addition and is very encouraging to the kids," said Gades.