The Tyrone Mock Trial B Team was “fighting fire with fire” as the defense in their last mock trial competition of the season on Thursday, February 2.  Unfortunately, that fire was extinguished by Central Cambria’s prosecution team who beat Tyrone by 1.83 points. The trial wrapped up the B team’s season, leaving them with a 0-2 record.

“I’m extremely proud of the work and effort that everyone put in for this season. For such a young team, I feel that we overachieved and earned the respect of our competitors,” said B Team coach Michael Funicelli.

The pressure was on the B Team to close their season with at least one win. The attorneys fired off tons of objections and presented challenging cross examinations to the other team’s witnesses.

Junior attorney Morgan Bridges cross-examined the other team’s expert witness, proving that the investigator’s case was flawed and had many errors that could make the prosecution’s case crumble and in turn prove that the defendant is innocent.

Freshman attorney Ebonee Rice proved that the defendant’s biased mother was lying in her interviews and could not be trusted on trial testifying against her own son.

Freshman attorney Brent McNeel used the witness’s own clever pun against her, slamming the witness for saying “we had to fight fire with fire” during the trial that would determine if a serial arsonist was innocent or guilty. This opened the door to a heated argument between the two teams.

However, this left Tyrone with only twelve minutes to fit in the direct examinations of their own witnesses. It seemed like an impossible task to achieve at first, but the team defied time and modified their questions to fit.

Tyrone’s witnesses showed their understanding of the case with lots of personality. On cross examination, the witnesses successfully stood their ground.

“Our witnesses rocked. I am very proud of how far all of us have come in just one season. I will miss the jokes and great times we had not only as a team, but as a family, ” said junior attorney Morgan Bridges.

Two B Team members took home awards from the trial. Freshman Brent McNeel won the Best Advocate Award and sophomore Brandon Escala won the Best Witness Award.

“It felt good to be recognized by the other team. I worked hard for it, but I couldn’t have done it without my attorney Brent McNeel. I definitely will be doing mock trial again,” said Escala.

The first year team was so close to taking home a victory in both of their trials. Members of the team will take these losses as learning experiences. They hope to take what they learned and use it to win against next year’s opponents.

“I look forward to next year and having everyone compete with more experience,” said Funicelli.