Holy Trinity continued its legacy of success at the recent TAPPS State Academic Meet held in Waco earlier this week. The Celtics took third overall, second in speech events, and were crowned the state champion team in Lincoln-Douglas Debate.

“It was a much different tournament for us,” Coach Chris Mosmeyer said. “We graduated a huge part of our team last year—more than a dozen seniors who competed in speech and academics. With a much smaller team this year, I didn’t expect much, but the students really came through.”

Holy Trinity competed in the 2A classification for the first time in three years. The drop to 2A put them in competition with a strong team from All Saints Episcopal School in Lubbock.  All Saints took the overall state championship with 256 points. The Cambridge School of Dallas placed second with 114 points. Holy Trinity followed them with 78.5 points. Points are awarded by placing in individual events—10 points for first, 8 for second, and so on.

The tournament took place Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at the Waco Convention Center. The highlight for Holy Trinity was on Monday when the Celtics dominated in the debate contest. Senior John Mottram and juniors Victoria Mosmeyer and Sarah Barkis compiled an impressive 13-1 record against debaters from other schools. In the end, Mottram and Mosmeyer were crowned co-state champions after each won their semifinal round. Barkis placed fifth, losing in the quarterfinals on a 2-1 decision.

“That was a great start for us,” Coach Mosmeyer said. “We usually do well in debate at the state meet, but that was a truly dominant performance by our debaters.”

This was the third straight year in which Holy Trinity won the team title in LD Debate.

The results in debate started a strong run to a third-place finish overall at the state academic meet. Since 2004, Holy Trinity has placed no lower than third at the state meet.

“I’m glad I was able to contribute to the school’s legacy,” Mottram said, adding that he and his teammates had a sense of relief at keeping the school’s twenty-year streak of success going. “We were glad to come out of the top three. We had a couple of missteps. If anything, I was a bit surprised we were able to finish at least third.”

The school finished ahead of Fort Worth Bethesda Christian School, which scored 65.5 points.

“That was kind of sweet,” Mosmeyer said. “They beat us in 2019, which at the time broke a streak of seven overall state championships for us. It was just a little payback there.” 

On Wednesday, Mottram added a second state championship medal, taking first in Persuasive Speaking. He also placed seventh in Spelling. 

Victoria Mosmeyer was the team’s overall point leader, placing in six of the seven events she entered. In addition to the state title in debate, Victoria took third in Persuasive Speaking, third in Duet Acting with partner junior Wesley Kuriger, fourth in Prose Interpretation, sixth in Original Oratory, and seventh in Solo Acting. Kuriger also placed fourth in Poetry, sixth in Solo Acting, and eighth in Spelling.

Also placing for the Celtics were Cielo Gonzalez-Fernandez, fifth in Poetry Interpretation; James Huang, fifth, in Mathematics; Khanh Nguyen, fifth place in Calculator; and Hallie Bravo and Ryder Hamden, eighth in Duet Acting. The school’s yearbook was awarded sixth place in the Yearbook contest. 

The Celtics also took part in the TAPPS 3A State Art Meet on Tuesday in Waco at the Extraco Events Center. Jayla Cooper took a silver medal in Drawing (Color), and Arianna Murray added a second place in Communication Design. 

Arya Wynne won second Computer Rendered Art and was an Honorable Mention in  Communication Design. Emily McBride placed fifth in 2D Mixed Media; Honorable Mention, Painting; and Honorable Mention, Seek and Sketch (B&W).

Lilly Ebers placed sixth in Seek and Sketch (Color). Victoria Obregon was eighth in On-Site Drawing and Honorable Mention in Painting. Trang Nguyen took fifth in Printmaking and Khanh Nguyen was eighth in 2D Mixed Media.