Harvard Mock Trial’s self-titled Team Courageous placed third in the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) National Championship in Des Moines, Iowa over the weekend—the best that any Harvard team has ever done.

Team Outrageous, the second of Harvard’s three mock trial teams, placed eighth, giving Harvard two spots in the top 10.

The victory marks the end to the best season ever for Harvard Mock Trial. Just a month after placing first out of about 50 teams at the qualifying tournament in Richmond, Ky., Team Courageous set out again, going up against about 600 teams from around the country.

“It was everything coming together, everything was polished,” said Kees A. Vandenberg ’06, captain of Team Courageous. “There’s talent, practice, and preparation, and then there’s polish; and this year, we had that.”

The championship consisted of four rounds of alternating between plaintiff and defendant, with each round lasting three hours. In the end, UCLA took the championship.

“They didn’t massacre us,” said Vandenberg. “We stood up to them as one of the best teams in the country. If we have everyone back next year, and we structure the teams right, we will win it.”

The team has been meeting at least three times a week to prepare for the case along with their coaches, third-year Harvard Law School students Clifford Sarkin and Mushtaq Z. Gunja.

“Finally, all our hard work had paid off,” said Allison C. Keavey ’07, who played a witness on Team Courageous. “For both teams to finish in the top 10 is really exciting, because no team at Harvard had ever taken it to that level before.”

Fueled by this recent momentum, in addition to months of experience, Keavey said the team is looking forward to an even better season next year.

“We’re losing two seniors, so that’ll be a tough loss,” said Keavey, “but we’ll have a lot of the same people competing again next year.”