The Dos Pueblos Mock Trial team competed in the final round of the Empire Philly: The Constitution Classic, and were declared champions for the second year in a row.

Empire Philly is a national mock trial competition held in Philadelphia, Pa., which this year hosted over 40 schools from around the country.

After heading to Philadelphia on Sept. 24, Jamison Komaiko (11) said competing in the championship came with “a lot of pressure” to repeat last year’s success.

“We were reigning champs, and everybody knew it,” Komaiko said. “There was a lot of pressure on that to defend our title, and we all worked really hard and we got there.”

The team as a whole wasn’t the only winner, Stella Moreno (11) and Ethan Gardiner (11) both won individual awards, with Moreno winning Outstanding Witness, and Gardiner earning Outstanding Attorney.

“Stella is insane at mock trial,” Jonathan Yang (12) said. “She’s a great witness, and we didn’t actually get to see her go … but from what we’ve seen from practice, it really wasn’t a surprise to any of us.”

Yang added that Gardiner is the “greatest mock trial” team member he has ever met.

“He knows the evidence code super well, and is generally very articulate,” Ariel Li (12) said of Gardiner’s award. “He does the closing argument, so he’s able to synthesize the argument or the evidence that we get in trial in a really convincing way.”

Although it was DP Mock Trial’s second consecutive Empire Philly win, it didn’t come without its own challenges.

“We have never taken a team this small before,” DPHS attorney coach Lisa Rothstein said. “We took eight kids, so all of them had roles that they played on both sides of the case … which means that they all had to learn twice as much as they normally would in a regular mock trial season that runs four or five months, and we only had two.”

Despite holding the 2024 champion title, the team was not initially set to compete at Empire Philly.

“We had not been planning to travel this season because we went last year, but this particular group [was] very attached to the idea of coming back and defending our championship,” Rothstein said. “Based on that, our real hope was that we would win it again and we would be able to defend our championship from last year.”

Rothstein said that beyond the win, it was a great trip and competition.

“They really connected with each other, which is always really a joy as a coach, to watch the team come together and really bond and make each other better,” Rothstein said.