It was a special moment when the small Cumberland-based Bishop Walsh School’s mock trial team qualified to go back to Annapolis and defend its 2025 state title.
While it wasn’t something the team talked about during the year, with so many returning players – seven of the 14 members were on last year’s winning team – the opportunity was there, according to Tony Orndoff, a social studies teacher and the team’s coach along with Nathan Williams and Jessica Colwell.
“It was more than you could really ask for,” Orndoff said. “It was really something.”
“I was so impressed,” Bradley Brandon, director of advancement at Bishop Walsh said. “They really did so well. We’re very proud of them.”
School mock trial teams argue either a civil or criminal trial by preparing both the prosecution and the defense side. In Maryland, the competition is sponsored by Maryland Youth and the Law. Bishop Walsh is in the Circuit 4 division along with local high schools Allegany, Fort Hill and Mountain Ridge in Allegany as well as Northern Garrett and Southern Garrett in Garrett County. Washington County is also a part of the circuit though it had no teams participating this year.
“We’re a pretty small school. Less than a 100 in high school,” Orndoff estimates. “We’ve been against a number of large public schools. It is a point of pride for me to take on all of them.”
This year’s team of four seniors, three juniors, one sophomore and six freshmen, started meeting in October on Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings.
“I tried to do after school, but it’s different from sports. It’s the same part of the brain they use all day,” Orndoff said. Being a small school, students are involved in multiple activities, too, he said, and it can be a challenge getting the team together during the week.
Dayton Wilson, 17, a junior, appreciates the weekend rehearsals. While he takes his role as a witness on the mock trial team seriously, he also plays basketball for the school and has practices and games during the week.
“It kind of surprised me,” Wilson admitted, of the amount of work and the attention to detail that was needed for mock trial during his first year on the team last year. “By my second year, I understood how to manage time and do it all.”
Technology has allowed the team “to be more flexible,” Orndoff said, as team members can attend via online platforms when they can’t attend in person. “We never had a practice canceled for snow.”
“It’s almost like another class,” said Ella Riley, 17, a junior who plays an attorney on the team. “We meet on weekends and scramble to do our homework and readings to present on Saturday and Sunday.”
During the season, the team faced each school in its circuit two times. Riley was quick to point out that this is the sixth time a school from Circuit 4 – a “small and relatively rural county” – has won a state title, with Allegany High School having multiple wins and the now-closed Westmar High School with one.
“Cases get increasingly complex. There are a lot of moving parts,” Orndoff said, of each year. He, himself, is a former mock trial member at Bishop Walsh, his alma mater. “It was much more simpler when I was a student. We would read speeches off of paper and travel with a podium.”
Today, everything is memorized. Students learn how to read critically, Orndoff said. They also learn confidence, poise and the ability to speak to a room of people.
“You have to be adaptable and able to think on your feet,” said Alice Weeker, 16, a junior who had the role of a witness, adding with a laugh. “You prepare as well as you can and wing it.”
“Mock trial has helped me become better at speaking, writing, analyzing texts and relating them to certain documents,” WIlson said.”Tony, he’s a great coach.”
The team, Orndoff said, was always eager to do whatever he asked of them.
“They are the best young people you can find,” Orndoff said of his team and of other teams. “It gives me a lot of hope and optimism for the future.”
This is the third state title Bishop Walsh School’s mock trial team has won. Previous wins were in 1990 and 2025.
This year’s mock trial competition featured 143 teams from around the state arguing both sides of the fictional case “Micah Ballan v. Chesapeake Corrections Inc. and Dylan Oberfeld” throughout the season.
The state championship competition March 27 featured Bishop Walsh arguing the defense and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School as the plaintiff in Maryland’s highest court, the Supreme Court in Annapolis, to a justice and five law professionals.
“I just thought everybody who participated today, really, you, your parents, your teachers, your coaches, all should be very proud. Congratulations on a tremendous performance,” Supreme Justice Jonathan Biran said before the verdict was read. “I see so much talent in this group. I hope some of you, at least some of you, one day become lawyers. It was truly a pleasure.”
Email Katie Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org
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