Deal Debate
Over the past week the Deal debate team finished up their regular season tournaments by competing in five different (both virtual and in-person) tournaments over a 7-day period!
Urban Debate Tournament
This weekend the team competed at their last Washington Urban Debate League tournament. The following students were recognized with awards:
Novice Division
9th place: Matias Melcher and Beckett Morris
Junior Varsity Division
3rd place: Mary Woodings and Penny Ventura
4th place: Iris Wilkens and Arabella Bernstein; Iris and Arabella were also recognized as the top and second place speakers in the division
10th place: Maya Karson and Fiona Johnson
Middle School Debaters of the Year
The following debaters were nominated by all 400+ debaters in the WUDL league for this prestigious award: Anna Morgan and Iris Wilkins
At the regional level the Washington-Arlington Forensics League held their metro-final tournaments. This event qualifies high school students to the national tournament in May. Many Deal students were allowed to compete in they challenged the high school students to the bitter end. Specifically, in policy debate the team of Ida Laitin and Anna Morgan finished with a winning record of 4-2 and achieved 6thplace.
In Student Congress seven Deal debaters competed in the varsity division with 7th grader, Rohan Tatlow placing 6th. Were Rohan a high school student he would have been the first alternate to attend the national championships in Chicago. Quite an accomplishment for a 7thgrader! Also of note in Student Congress, Blake Neal placed 9th and Maggie Schoenbaum placed 10th overall.
Finally, this weekend the team of Josie Caspar and Venya Gulati participated in the Tournament of Champions preliminary tournament held virtually. The tournament attracted mostly high school debaters from 23 states and two foreign countries. Competing in the ‘rising star’ division on Friday and Saturday the team finished the preliminary round with a record of 4-2 advancing to the quarterfinals where they were ultimately defeated on a 1-2 to a team from Taiwan! Of special note, both debaters were recognized as the 2nd (Josie) and 4th (Venya) speakers for the tournament.
An exciting week of breakthrough events for all the debaters. Next up are practice tournaments to prepare for nationals in June in Des Moines, Iowa. Go Deal!
