Students from Cape Elizabeth High School placed eighth in the national mock trial competition last weekend, the highest ranking ever for a Maine school, officials said.
Cape Elizabeth students have gone to the national competition seven years in a row, but no Maine team had ever placed higher than last year’s 20th, according to social studies teacher and team coach Mary Page.
Cape Elizabeth was one of 46 teams in the 2017 National High School Mock Trial Competition in Hartford, Connecticut.
Cape Elizabeth junior Grace Roberts was recognized as one of the 10 best attorneys performing at the competition, Page said.
Other team members were: Marianna Godfrey, Kinnon McGrath, Will Pearson, Libby Palanza, Emelie Jarquin Manegold, Colby Mayer, Lauren Cutter, Lilia Membrino and Samantha Vaughan. The attorneys coaching the team were Dick O’Meara, David Hillman, Sheila Sawyer and Jon Sahrbeck.
In mock trials, students prepare both sides of a case. Teams face off in actual courtrooms, and trials are presided over by judges and attorneys. At this year’s nationals, student teams tried a scenario involving the murder of a teenager after a Halloween party and the legitimacy of the confession provided by the defendant at a college initiation ceremony.
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