Success At Navy and Vermont For UR Debate Union

Over the last two weekends, the University of Rochester Debate Union had some great success at two competitions in the northeast, at the US Military Academy and at the Huber Debates at the University of Vermont.

The weekend at Army was great for the URDU, as teams of Charles Voltime and Vitumbiko Kambilonje along with Cedric Bonsol and WVU debater Brooke Modestita all won some big debates. After having a tough couple of losses on Sunday morning, Bonsol and Modestita rallied and won two break rounds in a row to reach elimination rounds, only to be knocked out in a tough debate in Octofinals.

While team Voltime and Kambilonje was not able to reach elims after eight tough debates, they had incredible individual speaking performances: out of 54 competitors Voltime finished as 15th speaker and Kambilonje finished as 3rd.  We look forward to more great performances from this talented crew!

URDU debaters take the time to catch up on current events for future debates.

This past weekend the URDU traveled to Burlington, Vermont for the Huber Debates at UVM. We brought many of our first year debaters to their second tournament of the season, two of whom received special recognition for excellent performances. We also very nearly defended our Championship title from last year, but instead ended as finalists in a very close debate against two Cornell teams and a Bard team.

The high point was definitely team Ben Frazer and Warish Orko’s ascent to the final round of the tournament – in Ben’s case, his second year in a row reaching finals at Vermont. While Ben won this tournament last year, he and Warish closely lost their final round to some really competitive teams. For Warish, reaching finals was a huge accomplishment as a first year URDU debater.

Our individual speaking performances in Vermont were also recognized. Out of over 170 speakers, Warish finished as 4th and Ben finished as 6th in Varsity. Nabil Rahman also ranked as the 7^th best Novice speaker out of some 85 eligible Novices competing. We are very proud of our debaters for these excellent performances!

While our semester is winding down, we’re taking the time to reflect and improve our debating for next year! We also have students traveling to the UK and Wake Forest University in the coming weeks for some selective debate competitions. Stay tuned for more Yellowjacket debate updates!