Moot Court wins upper Midwest tournament

CSULB’s moot court team of Krist Biakanja, IV and Kevin Poush, both political science majors, won the 2013 Upper Midwest Undergraduate Moot Court Tournament.  The tournament was held at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa November 8-9, 2013. Biakanja and Poush finished Friday night as the third seed and proceeded to win four straight rounds on Saturday.  All told, of the nineteen judges to judge them all but one voted for Biakanja and Poush.  One judge cast a ballot as a tie.This was the second event that this team has won this season — they also won the California-Texas Classic, which was held at CSULB in October of 2013. This was Poush’s first tournament.  Winning a regional in one’s maidan tournament is almost unheard of.  Poush has a career record of 6-0-1.

For Biakanja, this is his third tournament win and his second regional win, no other CSULB mooter has won two regionals or three tournaments.  His lifetime record in tournaments is 22-4-2.  In elimination rounds, Biakanja has a lifetime record of 12-1 (his one loss was on a technicality that resulted from a tie ballot that was awarded to the advantaged seed).  That is a remarkable achievement in a career that will take Mr. Biakanja to his second nationals in January of 2014.

CSULB will have five more teams compete in at the Western Regional held on campus, Dec 6-7, 2013.