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MavForensics Continue to Perform on National Stage

UNO is the only school in the nation to have two named on the 2025 American Forensics Association National All-American Team.

  • published: 2025/04/15
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Back Row, L to R: Coach Trae Medero Graham, Junior Dylan Harris, Freshman Bri Winfield, Sophomore Yasmin Monroy, Sophomore Sara Micanek, Freshman Damon Sheets, Sophomore Colin Gibbons, Sophomore Mak Ruffing, Coach Amanda VonGoodrich Front Row, L to R: Graduate Teaching Assistant Coach Devyn Halvorson, Freshman Winifred Huber, Senior Abigail Faris, Senior Keith Allen, Senior Brooklynn Schmidt, Freshman Bekah Evans

The College of Communication, Fine Arts and Media's Mavforensics team continued their winning tradition at the 2025 American Forensics Association National Speech Tournament (AFA-NST) hosted by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

With 57 different teams from across the nation and more than 400 competitors, the Mavforensics team qualified 43 individual speaking events and had three team members advance to quarterfinals, two advance to semifinals, and one team member advancing to the final round of competition.

The AFA-NST is historically a difficult tournament with a competitive qualification process and a high entry number, and while every team is capped at 66 individual entries, it is extremely difficult to achieve an out round status of Quarterfinalist, Semifinalist, or Finalist in any of the 11 different speaking events as each preliminary round of competition is ranked by a 2-judge panel.

The 2025 results were:
• Team finished 16th overall in open division competition.
• Seniors Keith Allen and Abigail Faris earned spots on the National All-American Team.
• Senior Abigail Faris was a quarterfinalist in Dramatic Interpretation (top 25 out of 114).
• Senior Keith Allen was a semifinalist in Dramatic Interpretation (top 12 out of 114).
• Senior Brooklynn Schmidt competed in a record number of 6 Persuasive Speaking rounds and was finished 5th out of 101.

In order to advance to a final round, students must make it through preliminary competition rounds, then quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of competition, judged by a 5-person panel. After making it to the top 6 speaking entries in the nation, they are judged again by a 5-person panel.

In addition, seniors Keith Allen and Abigail Faris were named to the National All-American Team. UNO was the only school to have two team members named. All-Americans are assessed on forensics success, academic achievement, and service work. The average GPA for an All-American member is 3.78. Students across the country apply to their district committees with a comprehensive application packet, and if passed along to the national committee, are then narrowed down to a pool of 12 and announced at opening ceremonies at the National Speech Tournament.

The UNO Mavforensics team is coached by Amanda VonGoodrich and Trae Medero Graham.