For the first time in school history, the Mock Trial black team competed for either first or second place in the Ventura County competition.

Over the course of four days, during the week of Feb. 24, the black team fought to attain first place and vied to keep their placement. In the final round, OPHS went up against St. Bonaventure for the first place spot.

The black team won all four of their trials over the first two days of the competition with winning scores from every scoring attorney, making OPHS school history. The black team seniors are Felipe Andrade, Sam Barney-Gibbs, Kellen Beckett, Suhana Danee, Vikshara Dave, Alex Goldbeck, Sawyer Nicoll, Aashika Srinivas and Brianna Szabo.

Social Sciences teacher and 10-year Mock Trial adviser, Dr. Victor Anderson, credited the team’s success to good leadership. The 2019-20 Mock Trial team captains are seniors Andrade and Srinivas.

“Since I’ve had team captains, they’ve been able to develop the program, and to meet with their peers and to really coach and teach,” Anderson said.

Co-team captain, Andrade, commented on all the work the team put in order to place in the top eight.

“It was a lot of hard work. We spent a lot of time outside of class having weekend practices, individual sessions preparing for competition and it was really great that all our hard work paid off,” Andrade said.

Co-team captain, Srinivas, was happy about their progress and placement as a team.

“I was really proud of my team because I knew they all worked really hard — both individually and with each other,” Srinivas said.

Speaking as a senior, Beckett mentioned the satisfaction of knowing they ended their Mock Trial career with a historic win.

“I have met some incredibly amazing, hard-working and successful people over the course of my four years in Mock Trial. We have all worked incredibly hard and it feels fantastic to know that our hard work resulted in shattering a record,” Beckett said.