URDU Heats Up In February

We have lots to report from a busy February! This past month saw URDU debaters winning top speaker awards, debating in elimination rounds, and generally having big successes in all experience levels of both of our formats of debate. For three weekends in a row, from Ithaca, NY to Washington, D.C. we had some amazing debates and brought home some trophies too!

Bri Terrell and Gabby Stillman (L) did extremely well in the Novice Division of the worlds tournament at Cornell.  Kelvin Ferreira and Vanessa Lara (R) finished as finalists in the Spanish Language division in the worlds format at Cornell.

The month started off strong with the Cornell “Tournament of Love,” where we had almost twenty teams participate, and had at least one team advance to elimination rounds in each of the five divisions we entered: Novice Worlds and Policy, Varsity Worlds and Policy, and even the Spanish Language Worlds division. Kelvin Ferreiras and Vanessa Lara finished as finalists in this division after a day of debating entirely in Spanish. In Novice debate Gabby Stillman and Bri Terrell finished as quarterfinalists in Novice Worlds after a close round against some of the top teams in the division, while in the Policy format Ka Kei Fong and Shuting Liang also finished as octa-finalists after their first debate tournament ever! In Varsity we had two teams in elimination rounds in each format: Syed Reefat Aziz and Junior Ndlovu finished as semi-finalists while Ben Frazer and Sarah Hofmann made it all the way to finals. In policy Ben Morbeck and Anthony Pericolo also finished as semi-finalists while Cedric Bonsol and Bethany Gardner finished as finalists. Individual speakers also shined this weekend:

-           Ben Frazer was top speaker in varsity worlds

-           Sarah Hofmann was 3^rd

-           Junior Ndlovu was 4th

-           Syed Reefat Aziz was 8^th

-           Cedric Bonsol was 2^nd speaker in varsity policy

-           Ben Morbeck was 7^th

-           Bethany Gardner was 10^th

At a crew of nearly forty debaters, the URDU brought its biggest crew in years! We’re excited for another great Cornell tournament next year.

Junchao Shen and Boguang Yang (L) had a great time competing at Cornell, while Marta Kontny and Aminatta Sylva (R) debated well at their first tournament ever!

The following weekend we brought one novice team to the Northeast Regional Championship Tournament and a varsity team to the District 8 National Debate Tournament Qualifier, both at Binghamton University. While our novice team failed to advance to elimination rounds – and our varsity team narrowly failed to qualify by only one ballot – those novices represented the URDU well. Marta Kontny persevered through some tough rounds at her very first policy tournament, while Anthony Pericolo stepped up and supported his partner. Cedric Bonsol and Tobi Abubakare were proud of their five ballots, and are currently applying for a second-round bid to the National Debate Tournament based on their solid competitive record all year.

This last weekend we ended our February competing with a trip to Washington, DC to compete at the Eastern Regional Championships at George Washington University. With over twenty students competing, the URDU did impressively well, advancing two teams to elimination rounds: Ben Frazer and Graeme McGuire finished as the top seed going into elimination rounds, and ended as quarterfinalists; Miriam Kohn and Chris Perkins finished as semifinalists. In individual awards:

-           Ben was once again awarded top speaker in varsity worlds

-           Miriam tied for fifth

-           Graeme was ninth  

In judging, Azmeena Sayeed chaired her first round and Shivali Mukenji was selected to judge in elimination rounds at her first debate tournament ever! Unfortunately two of our talented novices, Bri Terrell and Gabby Stillman ended just short of the points required to break into novice elimination rounds – they are nonetheless proud of their performance and ready to debate on!

We enter March ready for our last big tournament of the season – policy Novice and JV Nationals at West Virginia University – and for several highly competitive smaller competitions on the horizon. We’ll be busy in March – stay tuned for more!