Last year the McCaskey mock trial team lost in the county finals to Lancaster Catholic by points in a tie breaker.
But this year it was McCaskey that won the title in a similar ‘squeaker’ in which even members of McCaskey’s team feared they may have lost.
Each year a new fictional court case is submitted to high school teams throughout the state and students work for month to create and master arguments for both the prosecutor and defense, since they alternate sides from competition to competition.
Although designed to be equal, the cases do not always work out that way. This year, the defense is perceived by McCaskey team members to be the easier side, and in the county final McCaskey had the role of prosecutor.
The team is coached for the third straight year (and to the second county championship) by Kevin Webster, a faculty member at J. P. McCaskey. (Ms.) Nguyen Nguyen and Benjamin Field are co-captains.
This is the undefeated McCaskey’s seventh straight victory, three in local competition and four in a pre-season Pittsburgh Invitational Tournament.
The McCaskey team is representative of the ethnically and racially diverse inner city high school, including youngsters from Bosnia, Columbia , Peru, Puerto Rico and Viet Nam and consisting of African-American, Asians and Caucasians.
The next step for the team is the regional competition to be held in Harrisburg in March. It would require three more wins on the regional level to earn McCaskey a coveted birth in the state wide finals.
