Sonsalla, Lausten place at state speech meet
Sports | Published on April 29, 2025 at 3:43pm GMT+0000 | Author: Tucker Henderson
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New York Mills School speech coaches Jackson Veazie and Leah Roberts-Veazie congratulate state finalists Brooke Sonsalla and Payton Lausten at the state speech meet last week. Also competing for the NY Mills speech team was Elijah Geiser, who is pictured below with Sonsalla and Lausten.
On Friday, April 25, senior Brooke Sonsalla and juniors Elijah Geiser and Payton Lausten competed at the MSHSL (A) State Tournament at Shakopee High School.
Geiser narrowly missed making the finals, losing the first tiebreaker and placing ninth.
Both Sonsalla and Lausten advanced to the Championship Rounds of their events. Sonsalla placed seventh in Discussion, and Lausten placed fifth in Prose Interpretation.
Remarkably, Lausten competed against a student who performed a different cutting from the same novel, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
The last time New York Mills had two state finalists was in 2017. NY Mills had a single state finalist, John Ronning, in 2021, which was the last time a single member of the local speech team reached the state finals.
Details for Speak Up, a NYM Speech Performance and Awards Showcase, will be announced in the coming weeks.