DECA brought home four top five finishes, eight medals and six ribbons after competing in Blue Valley High School’s annual season opener tournament held at Johnson County Community College Tuesday, Sept. 17.

Junior Keaton Verdict placed second in Personal Financial Literacy. Seniors Aidan Taylor and Thomas Babcock finished third in Marketing Management Team Decision-Making. Seniors Josh Glunt and Nick Schmidt placed fifth in Business Law and Ethics Team Decision Making. Senior Sophia Klaudt finished fifth in Human Resources Management.

According to DECA vice president Thomas Babcock, the team was set back because this year’s season first tournament was held earlier than in previous years.

“This year’s main problem was the extremely quick turnaround for the first tournament. Usually we have more time to recruit members and let them get a better grasp of DECA before they have to compete,” Babcock said. “This year we weren’t given that luxury and had to work really quick because of how early the tournament was moved up this year.”

Babcock describes the general layout of his event and the scores that put him and Glunt in third place in the Marketing Management Team Decision-Making category. 

“We took a 100 question quiz over our event first, [and finished] with an average test score of 81.5. and then competed in a role play of our event where we [were] given a problem and [had to present] a solution  to a judge and got a score of 80,” Babcock said. 

Vice president of Tournament Analysis Josh Glunt lays out a plan of attack for improving the team’s performance before their next competition.  

“I’m in charge of practices and making everyone better,” Glunt said. “I’ll go over the judges comments for all the role plays for everyone and figure out where our weaknesses are and then work on those [with the team].”

While new DECA members will need to become acquainted with DECA competition, Glunt believes the team will be able to develop their skills before larger tournaments.  

“Our next biggest challenge will be [that] we have a lot of new members and just getting them getting them used to the structure [of DECA],” Glunt said. “That will be hard, but as soon as everyone gets used to it and has done a few competitions, we should be ready for state and nationals.”