Briefly in education

OCC’s speech and debate team finished second out of 65 schools at the

Sunset Cliffs Classic held Feb. 4-6 in San Diego County.

“There were 65 schools from throughout the country at the competition,”

said OCC coach Georgie Monahan. “The large field included more than 800

individual entries and 160 debate teams. It’ll be the biggest tournament

in the country this year, next to the nationals.”

“It was big and busy and fun, and very much a learning experience for

us,” Monahan added. “We hadn’t competed since early last December, so we

were happy with the results.”

One local student who took home individual medals was Costa Mesa’s Lucas

Ochoa, who finished third in speech to entertain and second in

after-dinner speaking.

Other individual finalists included Gavin Hoover, Neil Slate and Melissa

Jenkin, all of Costa Mesa; and Lisa Chung of Newport Beach.