Saint Stephen’s Mock Trial team snagged first place at the regional competition on Saturday, Feb. 16, at the Bradenton Court House. The team will go on to represent Manatee county at the State competition, which will take place in Orlando, March 7-10.

Junior Zhuo Zhao, a new member of the team this year, said the team did its best at the competition. She added that Upper School history teacher Ms. Pat Murphy, their advisor, prepared her students for anything the other teams could have thrown at them.

“As a relatively new team with only two members who have done this before, I think we did very well,” she said.

The team’s captain, senior Laura Culp, said this year’s team members were especially good at thinking on their feet during the competition.

“This is a really smart, talented and best of all, well-spoken team,” she said.

Culp added that the team “killed it” at regionals and she thought the Saint Stephen’s team deserved to win.

“We had all our stuff memorized and had a clear control of the courtroom compared to the other teams, who seemed intimidated by being in the courthouse in front of the judge,” she said.

Zhao said she screamed a little after hearing the results of regionals and is very excited to move on to the state competition.

“I was so happy [to see] that all of our hard work since October paid off,” she said.

Senior Shubham Mathur, who rejoined the Mock Trial team after taking a break during his sophomore and junior years, said he is eager to see the level of competition at States.

“I imagine the competition will be much tougher, so we have to work hard until then, but it will be tons of fun, regardless,” he said.

Culp said she anticipates a lot of hard work to prepare.

“I hope we do well, but I know we’ll do our best,” she said.