By Gargoyle news staff


Posted Monday, April 23, 2007, The OG, news & student awards

URBANA — A Uni team consisting of students from the Gargoyle and yearbook staffs has advanced to the IHSA state finals in 10 events.

The students competed in the IHSA sectional contest held Saturday at the University of Illinois. Uni placed second overall, scoring 63 points and finishing behind champion Taylorville, which finished with 68 points.

Last year Uni won the sectional title with 64 points.

“We probably would have exceeded that score this year,” said team adviser David Porreca. “Unfortunately, due to last-minute circumstances we didn't have a competitor in one of the events, so we lost the opportunity to win up to an additional six points. In contests like this, it's important to have competitors in every event.”

Sectionals took place at seven locations throughout the state. Students who placed in the top three in their events qualified for the state finals, which will be held Saturday at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.

The journalism competition does not classify schools according to enrollment. Schools of all sizes compete against each other in 15 timed events: advertising, infographics, copy editing, editorial cartooning, editorial writing, feature writing, headline writing, news writing, newspaper design, newspaper sports writing, feature photography, review writing, yearbook copy writing, yearbook layout: double-page spead, and yearbook theme development.

The following Uni students qualified for state:

• Devika Bagchi — advertising, 1st place

• Jono Baron — review writing, 2nd place

• Michael Belmont — sports writing, 1st place; news writing, 2nd place

• Michelle Gao — feature writing, 2nd place

• Ben Hyman — headline writing, 1st place; copy editing, 3rd place

• Deren Kudeki — editorial cartooning, 1st place

• Annie Liang — newspaper design, 1st place

• Christopher Nixon — feature photography, 3rd place

“I had a pretty good idea of what to expect,” said Baron, a Gargoyle senior editor. “Although I hadn't been able to compete last year, I did review writing this year and knew the drill: three songs are played, and you do a review on the band based on those three tracks. Needless to say, I was relatively unimpressed, and I figured I wouldn't like the band that was played for us anyway. That said, I feel like I took my review too far in terms of criticism, so I'll definitely watch that next time — I kind of forgot I was writing for a contest, and instead just gave a bit of a monologue about how much I hate pop-punk music.”

Added Annie Liang, who is a member of both the Gargoyle and yearbook staffs: “I found the competition to be an interesting new experience. For me, doing newspaper design, it was strange having to deal with placing advertisements and watching the clock.”

Last year, when fourth-place finishers were allowed to advance to state, nine Uni students qualified in a total of 13 events. (Uni qualified in three of those events with fourth-place finishes.)

Angelina Liang, then a senior, went on to place second in the state in infographics, while Annie Fehrenbacher, also a senior, placed third in copy editing and fifth in headline writing.

RELATED

— Gargoyle coverage of 2006 sectional: Uni wins IHSA journalism sectional championship

— IHSA: Journalism contest site