URDU Earns Strong Finishes At Cornell and Binghamton
March 2, 2016
In mid-February we brought a big crew and many URDU debaters had very strong performances, competing in two formats and FIVE different divisions of debate – Novice and Varsity Policy, and Novice, Varsity, and Spanish-speaking Worlds!
We had strong finishes in each division – not to mention our student judging success.
URDU novices await the announcement of the next motion in the Worlds auditorium
Andres Ollarvez and Dan Gomez were the first ever URDU members to debate in the Spanish-language division of a tournament! They finished strong, taking home the semi-finalist award. We hope they have paved the way for much more Spanish-language debating in the URDU’s future!
L to R: Dan Gomez and Andres Ollarvez pose with their Semi-Finalist trophy for the Spanish-language division of the tournament.
In Worlds Novice we had two teams make it to elimination rounds – teams Mark Tantarelli and Tom Borchart, and Sakhile Mathunjwa and Derick Rossell finished as quartfinalists in the Novice National division!
Two Worlds Varisty debaters also earned speaker awards for their individual performances: Miriam Kohn finished as 5th speaker and Chris Perkins finished as 6th. Sarah Hofmann was selected to judge elimination rounds once again, demonstrating her judging prowess.
In Policy Novice Margeaux Kelly and Emmani Karra finished as Finalists, losing to Cornell in a very close final round. Margeaux was also the top speaker in novice and her partner Emmani was 2nd! In Varsity Policy Tobi Abubakare and Cedric Bonsol finished as semifinalists, with Tobi earning the 3rd place speaker award and Cedric earning 4th!
L to R: Margeaux Kelly and Emmani Karra get help preparing for their elimination round from coach Jefferson Yahom and teammate Cedric Bonsol.
All in all it was hard to keep track of all of our successes at the Cornell tournament!
URDU policy debaters also had a great tournament in Binghamton, NY. We finished with Margeaux Kelly and Naomi Rutaragama as quarterfinalists in novice and Margeaux was the 5th best speaker in the tournament’s novice division. They look forward to more debating this semester!
L to R: Emman Karra, Tobi Abubakare, Margeaux Kelly, Naomi Rutaragama, Cedric Bonsol