By William Guo— Correspondent
Above: Sharon’s Mock Trial Team after their third win over Oliver Ames High School and qualification to the Mass Bar state tournament.
With an undefeated regular season and a trip to the Massachusetts state tournament, the Sharon High Mock Trial team is back.
“I’m really proud of how we did. It was just nice to see the fruit of [the team’s] labor,” said co-captain Nasiba Alikulova.
Mock Trial is a team competition where students replicate real-life trials as attorneys and witnesses on a set case. “You can think of it as similar to other public speaking clubs,” Alikulova explained. “But how it functions is…you are role-playing to simulate a real courtroom trial.”
The team went undefeated in the preliminary rounds against other teams in the Canton, Cardinal Spellman, and Oliver Ames high schools. Their winning season earned them a spot at the Massachusetts Bar Association State Tournament at Clark University.
For the team, it was solely the result of hard work. Members of the Mock Trial team attended practice multiple times each week, and every weekday before the tournament, to get familiar with their case. “Pretending to be witnesses, learning every detail of the affidavits, learning how to make objections under the rules of evidence,” club advisor Ms. Tanya Perkins recounted of the team’s extensive preparation. “There’s a lot of thinking on our feet that we have to practice and learn how to do.”
Co-captain Samah Hamid attributed much of the team’s success this season to Perkins. “She came for basically every single meeting and she brought her all; she [was] just as invested as we were,” Hamid said. “And because she took the team to nationals, she knows exactly what she’s doing.”
Perkins, who founded the club in 2000 and holds an undefeated regular season record leading the team, took a hiatus from the club for many years and returned this year as an advisor. “ I missed having an extracurricular that gave me an opportunity to work with students and develop slightly more deep connections with students,” Perkins explained.
Co-captain Anthony Wu was especially proud of the new members’ hard work and the team’s all-around effort to master mock trial material. Despite having many newcomers in the club, he was amazed by the team’s participation throughout the season. “We had eight seniors leave. We had two seniors this year and…we thought we’d have to do a lot more teaching,” he recalled. “But [the team] just absorbed information so well and they put so much effort into learning, and [they] blew our minds with all the work and talent that [they] have.”
Wu also reflected on the journey the team made since the start of the year. “The season was a lot more than what I bargained for, and I think I’m very appreciative of the fact of how well it went,” Wu said.
Although the team fell to Franklin High School in the state tournament, the captains have only high expectations for the years ahead. “Knowing the team now, I am positive that [they] can make it even further than we did this year,” Hamid reflected.
The Sharon High Mock Trial Team met weekly this year in room 2504 before their season ended. Their Instagram can be found at @sharonmocktrial. Go Legal Eagles!