News Detail
Speech and Debate Continue Winning Streak
The Speech and Debate team has been busy! We just finished up two grueling days of virtual national-circuit competition at the CSU Long Beach Invitational Tournament. And we had amazing results!
In Policy Debate, our varsity competitors debated in a large division of 214 people, from states including Nevada, Utah, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Washington, Illinois, Texas, New York, and from as far as Taiwan. The teams of Zoe Price '21 and Adri Kornfein '21 and Jack Jacobs '22 and Mateo Mijares '22 made it into the elite top 32 teams of the tournament! From there, both teams debated in the double octofinal elimination round. Having multiple teams make appearances in elimination rounds at a national-circuit tournament is an incredible accomplishment for our growing squad! Tabatha Stewart '22 also had a fantastic showing; she won multiple debates, and was only one round away from also making it to the elimination round.
In JV Policy Debate, the team of Maddy Jannes '22 and Zobek Popin '24 dominated the competition. They finished their preliminary rounds as the top seed and were the only undefeated team in the division! They went on to debate in the quarterfinal elimination round and the semifinal round, advancing through both on unanimous decisions from the judging panel. After a split decision in the final round of the tournament, Maddy and Zobek emerged winning second place overall in their division. Additionally, Maddy was given the incredible honor of winning 1st Place speaker, being voted by the judges as the best speaker in her division of 40 competitors. Zobek was awarded 4th place speaker, an impressive feat for a new debater competing in JV!
In speech, we also had several students advance to elimination rounds. Pavel Karabelov '22 and Bert Garner '21 both competed in the semifinal round in Varsity Impromptu speaking, an event with a total of 76 competitors. Veronica Aranda also advanced to semifinals in Varsity Dramatic Interpretation, and from there moved on to finals, where she was awarded 3rd place in her division. This placement earned Veronica her first "bid" of the year to the prestigious Tournament of Champions, where we hope to compete in April.
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