NEBRASKA CITY-Last weekend, on February 27th, the Nebraska City High School speech team won the inaugural Trailblazer Conference speech championship as a team by scoring 274 meet points with Beatrice finishing as the team runner-up in the meet with 206 points. 
 
In addition to the conference results, senior Ellie Higgins has qualified for the NSDA national tournament this summer by winning both humorous and serious at the national qualifier tournament held last weekend. 
 
The team won 7 of the 9 events, and every speaker on the conference team earned a top 3 medal. This year, because the team has grown in size compared to last year, Coach Aaberg could not select the entire team to compete in both conference and district, but, it will be exciting to see what happens for those speakers next year as they have 6 seniors on the district team, which is the largest graduating group the team has had in 4 years.
 
On Monday, March 8th, the team will have their district contest, which takes on an added significance because the top 3 in each event from the district meet qualify for state, and the team missed out on the district meet last year due to the pandemic, so for many on the team, this will be their first district tournament. 
 
Here are those results 
 
O.I.D.: Lillian Frields, Christian Tietz, Eric Poggemeyer, Caleb Poggemeyer, and Eli McNeely--Conference champion
 
Entertainment: Megan Essary--Conference champion, Marcus Bartman--2nd place
 
Persuasive: Kelly Gonzalez--Conference champion,
Jacob Cooper--2nd place
 
Extemporaneous: Eli McNeely--2nd place, Isabelle Bare--3rd place
 
Informative: Sydney Blum--Conference champion, Caleb Poggemeyer--3rd place
 
Humorous: Isabelle Bare--Conference champion, Jaden Leasure--3rd place
 
Serious: Jaden Leasure--3rd place
 
Poetry: Izabella Earll--Conference champion
 
Duet: Lillian Frields & Christian Tietz--Conference champion, Dalton Cooper & Katie Dia--3rd place
 
In addition to the conference results, senior Ellie Higgins has qualified for the NSDA national tournament this summer by winning both humorous and serious at the national qualifier tournament held last weekend. 
 
Coach Aaberg would like to thank everyone from the students who pour their heart into this activity, to the parents that support their students, to his volunteer assistants who help coach or help supervise the team at meets, and anyone else that has helped the team this year. The team's success is not possible without the support along with the dedication of the students.