The UIL Academics team was the runner-up at the Waller Invitational meet Saturday, Jan. 28, after a strong showing in speech, debate, journalism and social studies.

In Lincoln-Douglas debate, Baylee Cammack and Steven Brown tied for fifth and Breshad Robinson placed third.

In storytelling, Alex Jacob placed fourth. In novice prose, Grace Navarrete placed sixth. In prose, Jacob placed third. In soapbox, Cason Smith placed fifth and Robinson placed third. In impromptu, Jacob placed second. In novice extemp, Trevion Duremdez placed sixth, Nancy Diaz placed fourth, and Melanie Roman placed third. In informative speaking, Brown placed fourth and Cammack placed second. In persuasive extemp, Robinson was the tournament champion. Stefanie Martinez placed fourth in poetry interpretation.

Speech and debate placed second in speech sweepstakes.

On the academic side, Adolfo Paredon placed eighth in computer applications.

In social studies, Annette Bell placed fifth, Daniela Vargas sixth, Karla Torres seventh, Sophia Dumas ninth, and Sophia Schaloff 10th. The social studies team was the second-ranked team.

The journalism team was the tournament champion in team. Liz Fierros placed sixth in feature writing. Kately Diaz placed fourth in both news and feature writing, and eighth in headline writing. Jose Gomez placed third in headline writing and second in news writing. Alyssa Herdon placed seventh in feature writing. Jaden MacKinnon placed seventh in copy editing, third in feature writing and was the tournament champion in news writing. Natalia Molina placed fifth in copy editing and was the tournament champion in headline writing.

The team will compete again at the Porter UIL Invitational on Saturday, Feb. 11.