News Detail
SA Wins Stanford Invitational
It would be difficult for SA to have had a more successful outcome at the annual Stanford Invitational which was host to more than 1600 entries from 177 schools across 21 states. In the Varsity Parliamentary Debate division, in which SA had 10 entries (20 students), every team entered won at least one debate, including freshmen teams competing at their first ever Varsity tournament! Five Varsity teams earned winning records and advanced to the elimination bracket -- more than any other school in the competition.
Seeding for the elimination bracket is based on the win record of the first 6 preliminary rounds. With 2 undefeated teams, SA took the 1st and 2nd seed in the bracket (Jack Greenberg '16 & Liam Kolling '16 and Connor Duncan '17 & Aris Saxena '17).
Maxx Marian '16 & Jake Haas '16 advanced to the triple octafinal round, Alyssa Goody '16 & Gibran Hassan '19 advanced to the Double Octafinal round, Audrey von Raesfeld '17 & Caleb Kornfein '17 advanced to the Octafinal round, where they were unfortunately paired against Jack & Liam who advanced over Audrey & Caleb due to their higher preliminary seed. Jack & Liam advanced all the way to the Semifinal round, where they were eventually defeated by one of the top ranked teams in the country. This set up a final round between that team and Connor & Aris. The resolution was a question of economics and how to best help the disadvantaged. Connor & Aris won the debate on a resounding 5-0 unanimous judges decision, earning the title of Varsity Parliamentary Debate Champion for the 2016 Stanford Invitational.
Additionally, Connor was recognized as the 5th best speaker of the tournament and Jack was honored as the 4th best speaker.
Finally, the success of this tournament for the SA team means that Connor & Aris and Audrey & Caleb earned enough points to qualify for the Parliamentary Debate Tournament of Champions in April. These 2 teams join Jack & Liam who qualified to the TOC earlier in the year.
Next up, the SA team competes this weekend in the final preliminary league policy debate of the season then takes 2 weeks off before a stretch of 3 important invitational tournaments in February.
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Champions Connor & Aris
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Jack and Liam in action
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Semifinalists
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Audrey and Caleb
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Alyssa and Gibran
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Maxx and Jake
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