Junior Kavan Rogness and sophomore Alex Brakke pose with their first place trophies after a recent tournament.
Did you know that there is a competitive team at Gustavus Adolphus College that regularly competes against Division I schools and finished last year with a top 20 ranking in the country? It’s not the men’s or women’s tennis team, and this team does not compete in Lund Center. Give up? It’s the Gustavus Forensics team and momentum for another strong season is already building.
The forensics season is barely a month old and already the team is in need of a larger trophy case. Within two weeks time, head coach Kristopher Kracht’s team placed first in three different tournaments. So far this season the team has four first place trophies.
Gustavus beat out Kansas State University and Minnesota State University, Mankato for first place on Oct. 5-6 at the South Dakota State University Jackrabbit Jousts Forensics Tournament. Then on Oct. 13-14, Gustavus took top honors at the Talk of the Tundra Invitational hosted by Concordia College and the Lyle Huseby Invitational hosted by North Dakota State University.
Because there are no divisions when it comes to forensics competition, Gustavus regularly competes against large universities, making its national ranking even more impressive.
“Not a lot of people understood what that meant when we finished last season ranked in the top 20,” junior Kavan Rogness said. “Fourteen of the top 20 schools were Division I schools that have more funding, more coaching, and more resources than we do.”
“Personally, I like the challenge,” junior Maria Siegle said. “Especially this year I find it intriguing that we compete against those big schools. It’s really fun to go head to head with them.”
Rogness, a Lakeville native, and Siegle, a Cologne native, are just two of many team members who have experienced success at tournaments this fall.
Rogness specializes in poetry and prose interpretation events, where he has secured several first place finishes already this season.
Siegle placed in four events and took first place in the individual sweepstakes at the Lyle Huseby Invitational on Oct. 14. Siegle won the prestigious individual honor thanks to first place finishes in Impromptu Speaking and Persuasion and third place finishes in Extemporaneous Speaking and Informative Speaking.
Sophomore Emma Moreau is another team member who has performed strongly this fall. The St. Paul native took first place in the individual sweepstakes at the Talk of the Tundra Invitational on Oct. 13 thanks to a first place finish in Prose Interpretation, second place finishes in After Dinner Speaking and Drama, and a third place finish in Impromptu Speaking.
Other key team members include senior Brittney Lovdahl, junior Tasha Carlson, sophomores Alexandra Brakke, Mary Cunningham, Christopher Hunt, Sean Maertens, and Paula Wiggam, and first-year students Marie Bushnell, Eric Cronin, Phil Helt, Austin Lafferty, and Claire Sagstuen.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Gustavus forensics team is the coaching philosophies that are utilized to garner improvement throughout the course of the year. While many of the schools Gustavus competes against have several full-time coaches, the Gustavus coaching staff consists of Kracht—who is also a full-time professor of communication studies—and assistant coach Josh Forsythe who is paid a small stipend for the many hours he gives to the program.
“We rely a lot on peer coaching,” Rogness said. “We get together on Wednesday and Thursday nights for two hours and it’s student led. It’s something that we’re really proud of. Some schools have a huge coaching staff and they aren’t able to accomplish what we’re able to accomplish.”
In addition to the peer coaching sessions, it’s not unusual for each team member to meet with Kracht twice a week to talk about their speeches.
“The dynamic of the team is really good this year,” Siegle said. “We’re competitive with each other, but we still know how to help each other at the same time.”
One thing that the team appears to not be lacking is leadership and a lot of that has fallen on the shoulders of Lovdahl—the team’s lone senior this year.
“Brittney has been put into a lot of leadership positions and we kind of look up to her,” Rogness said. In addition to her leadership qualities, Lovdahl has been a key part to the team’s early successes this season.
Most recently, Lovdahl placed in the top 6 in three different events to help Gustavus place first and ahead of Kansas State University and Bradley University at the Larry Schnoor Invitational hosted by Minnesota State University, Mankato on Oct. 20.
What Lovdahl, Rogness, Siegle, and the rest of the team are striving for is to set the building blocks in place to help Gustavus become a perennial national power in forensics. Kracht is hoping to do the same and took a step in the right direction by starting the Gustavus Summer Speech Institute this past summer.
The six-day, five-night camp afforded high school students the opportunity to work with Gustavus coaches, high school coaches, and nationally recognized collegiate competitors.
“I think it’s a great thing for the college to have because those kids were so excited to be on a college campus doing something they love,” Siegle said. “It’s also a good recruiting tool to get the word out about our program and about college speech in general,” Rogness added.
The word is definitely out about one thing: Gustavus forensics is one team on campus to watch out for.