On Wednesday, Feb. 13th, the Menlo Mock Trial team won the San Mateo county finals 4-0. The team is moving on to the Sacramento State finals in late March.

The victory was the culmination of a season of especially hard work following the departure of former head coach Tom Scher and JV coach Karen Barr, as well as many other members of the coaching staff. Menlo Mock has been a notable California program for the past few years, but last year’s coaching shake-up threatened to change that. However, teacher-coach Dan Devitt was able to bring together a coaching staff of both returning attorney coaches as well as new faces in order to assist the team through the transition. “This year really tested our limits as a team,” junior defense attorney Meredith Fenyo said. “A large part of our success this year was due to our huge work ethics and willingness to work super hard for something that we all really wanted.”

This season’s case revolved around a swatting incident, where a false hostage tip is made at someone’s house in hopes that a SWAT team will forcibly enter and scare the victim. Menlo Mock Trial quickly learned both their prosecution and defense cases and won first place at the NorCal tournament in early January. They rode that momentum into the multi-week county finals, where they didn’t drop a single ballot in any of their trials. Heading into states, team morale is high, but they’re heading back to the drawing board to streamline and perfect their material in order to be as competitive as they can be in Sacramento.