The Brandeis Mock Trial team returned in high spirits on Sunday despite losses at the American Mock Trial Association National Tournament in St. Petersburg, Fla. Though the team did not win the tournament, "there's a chance that several people could have won individual awards, and it looks likely based on the numbers," according to team member Sam Dewey '06. News about individual honors the team members may have received is still pending. Stanford University took the first place prize at the competition, with Manchester Community College in Manchester, Conn. taking second.

Fifty-two winning teams from across the country competed for the academic honor, awarded to the group who best defends and prosecutes a yearly court case enacted entirely by students.

Representing Brandeis were Dewey, Jeremy Widder '06 and Kelly Collachi '06, who acted as defending and prosecuting lawyers, and Wendy Safran '07, Max Eckstein '07, Meredith Friedman '05 and Alice Ittelson '08, who took the stand as witnesses.

For the members of the Mock Trial team, it was a difficult road to the national competition. The team had to win the regional competition which includes teams from Dartmouth, Brown and Boston University. In addition, the team struggled to find funding to travel to the competition.

The team eventually raised money through a combination of funds from the Student Union, the University Retention Fund, and the law firm Kramer Levin, where Kenneth Eckstein, father of team member Esckstein, is a partner.

It was the first National Tournament for the young mock trial team, which has grown in four years to rival schools with long-established programs and exceptional national reputations.

The tournament consisted of four rounds, each with two judges who score each team on their own ballot.

In the first two rounds, against teams from Kansas City, Missouri and University of California Berkeley, Brandeis split the ballots. The third round ended in defeat, with the team losing 114-115 on one of the ballots.

"We believed that decision was random and arbitrary, based on the ballots and the written comments, and especially considering the profuse compliments the other team gave us," Dewey said.

The team's greatest challenge came in the fourth round, when Widder came down with food poisoning and could not participate in the trial. The team substituted Eckstein as a lawyer, though he had never played the role in practice, and was forced to make Safran act as a witness she had never played.

They lost the round, but the team said they were proud of their valiant last minute shuffle.

"We had a very good showing in terms of other teams and the tournament directors," said Dewey. "We're confident we will be back at Nationals next year and possibly sending two teams to compete. We look forward to increasing overall participation of the club. All in all, we had a very exciting season.