Debate Recap: Novice State and Debate Coaches Invitational

Photos courtesy of SME Office

East’s Debate team participated in State Jan. 6 and Jan. 7. The freshmen team, novices, as well as DCI, debate coach invitational, upperclassmen teams, carried out their tournament at Derby High School in Wichita. Washburn Rural from Topeka won the novice tournament with East coming in second overall. Juniors Jacob Roberts and Hazel Carson were placed 22nd overall. Seniors Carolyn Hassett and Nick Massa placed 12th, while Hassett was also awarded an 11th place speaker award and Massa received a sixth place one.

Novices had 94 debate teams in progress and 16 broke into “out rounds”— or octofinals, elimination rounds. Freshmen teams of two: Grant Colvin and Hannah Hobert, Emory Apodaca and Evan Winden and Olive Henry and Lucy Brock competed in outrounds.  Blue Valley North, Washburn Rural and East have the best debate teams in the state, according to freshman debater Grant Colvin.

Olive Henry, also a passionate new debater, believes she and her partner Lucy Brock could improve, despite their 5-0 scoring during preliminary rounds.

“My partner and I could work on communicating more in the round about what to run and how to answer arguments, so we don’t accidentally make contradicting statements,” Henrysaid.

The DCI debate team duos were Nick Massa and Carolyn Hassett and Hazel Carson and Jacob Roberts. The teams were each given two bids, the necessary amount in order to be eligible for DCI. A bid is given after being in the top 16 at a separate tournament and two bids are given after making it to finals.

“DCI is kind of like Mega-State,” Roberts said.

Roberts and Carson are new partners, debating for the first time together in DCI. To prepare for the tournament, they participated in practice debates. Hassett and Massa placed 12th, while Hassett was also awarded an 11th place speaker award and Massa received a sixth place one.

“I think we did well in terms of understanding the arguments we were making and articulating that to the judge,” Hassett said. “Whether that be our organization of speech doc, following the line by line, or spinning our arguments to be more appealing.”