Pound the gavel and offer a congratulatory handshake. The La Reina High School mock trial team wrapped up its most successful showing in the school's proud history Saturday at nationals in Wilmington, Del.

The team placed 25th in its first time at the national mock trial competition. The all-girls Catholic school in Thousand Oaks has won the Ventura County event 15 times since 1990. The school won its first state title last month in Riverside, allowing it to advance to nationals.

After squaring off against state champions from Washington and Minnesota on Friday, La Reina took on teams from Massachusetts and Wisconsin on Saturday.

"I'm very, very proud of the way the girls performed today," coach Thomas Mundell said Saturday from Wilmington. "The level of competition was very, very high, and we had a tough draw."

A total of 42 teams competed at the 25th annual national event. They staged a mock case in a courtroom; team members play attorneys, witnesses, bailiffs and other court figures. Schools are judged on how well they put on the overall case.

This year's case was a civil action involving a foreign company suing an American corporation that doesn't want to sell the Port of Wilmington because it believes the foreign company has ties to terrorism. The foreign company is trying to force the sale through the courts.

Mundell, a civil attorney in Westlake Village whose daughter, Amanda, is on this year's team, called La Reina's first-ever visit to nationals "a wonderful experience."

"This is an opportunity of a lifetime, to compete for a national championship," he said. "They'll remember it all their lives."

Daughter Amanda, a senior, seconded that notion, adding, "It's been the most rewarding experience of my high school years. It was overwhelming and motivational at the same time."

La Reina's national team consisted of "attorneys" Amanda Mundell, Hannah Harper and Nayantara Bhushan; "witnesses" Lauren Dansey, Erika Harlacher, Kristin Miller, Piper Nunez and Julianne Brauer; and team clerk/timekeeper Paloma Spencer.

Thomas Mundell, in his second year as La Reina coach, noted it's been "pretty daunting" following the school's tradition of success established by longtime coach Don Glynn.

Mundell said he was joking around about that with a sister — La Reina is owned by the Sisters of Notre Dame — on Saturday. She told him that he's reset the bar.

The bar may sit in place awhile. Mundell said he'll lose a huge chunk of the senior-heavy team and may have only two or three returning members in 2009, meaning "it may be a rebuilding year."

For the record, a team from Jonesboro, Ga., won for the second year in a row, again beating a Kalamazoo, Mich., school in the finals.