A group of 14 Elizabethtown College students recently traveled to Washington, D.C. for a regional tournament of the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA), hosted by American University from Feb. 15 to 16.
The students were split up into two teams, the “A Team,” composed of Curstin Carpenter ’25, Emory Barton ’27, Chikezie Emmanuel ’27, Aaron Ghee ’25, Erin Ford, Grady Zigner ’26, Leah Thomas and the “B Team,” composed of Kalen Tendo ’27, Alison Carneal ’26, Olivia Addo ’26, Aiden Valentine ’26, Kylie Holl ’26, Justin Marraccini ’26, and Ali Al-Nawasreh ’25.
Elizabethtown College’s “B Team” accepting the Spirit of AMTA Award.
The “B Team” won the Spirit of AMTA Award at the tournament, which recognizes the team that best exemplifies the AMTA ideals of civility, justice, and fair play. At the end of the competition, each team captain scored the opposing team on a scale of 1-10 on AMTA ideals, and Etown’s B Team received a perfect score.
“Both teams put in an impressive amount of work into this competition and the ‘B Team’ being honored with the Spirit of AMTA award shows how committed everyone was to our College’s Educate for Service motto, loaning other teams our materials and helping them with filling out various forms,” Carneal said. “Despite the extreme stress and pressure of the competition, the ‘B Team’ stayed positive and showed kindness to all other teams.”
At the tournament, the teams participated in two trials on each day and put in more than 50 hours of preparation before the tournament.
The group attended the event as part of Etown’s Mock Trial 1 and Mock Trial 2 courses and attended the competitions with Elizabethtown College Adjunct Faculty in Politics, Philosophy & Legal Studies Chris Miller.
