September 19 and 20, the ND Debate Team competed in two tournaments online -- the Greenhill tournament and the CSU, Long Beach Tournament with approximately 30 students competing in different divisions and activities. We competed in several divisions of policy debate and world school debate as well as extemporaneous speaking this weekend.
At Greenhill, the team finished in the Top 16 with 2 teams placing in elimination rounds: Sarah Davidson/Nikhil Navare and Seamus Kim/Brian Snitman. Davidson/Navare were undefeated in the preliminary rounds and placed as the 2nd seed overall going into elimination rounds and then lost in the Octofinals. Kim/Snitman lost on a close 2-1 decision in the Double Octofinals after finishing with a 5-1 record in preliminary rounds. The World School team also competed against teams from around the country and world at Greenhill. They picked up several notable wins throughout the weekend.
At the Long Beach Tournament, in policy debate, Luka Anagnos and Andrew Yepremian placed in the top 32 teams overall after finishing with a 5-1 record. They also placed in the Top 20 speakers (Lukas Anagnos placed 17th and Andrew Yepremian 18th) out of over 200 students in the open policy division. Claire Park and Ella Ladd also finished with a winning record (4-2), but just missed on speaker points to get to elimination rounds. Additionally, the World School team of Alex Gerson, Nicholas Monsour, Vahan Haytayan and Jayden Sengul, was undefeated in their division. They just missed making it to finals on speaker points as well.
The resiliency and adaptability of the students to online competition is honorable and they are proving that ND Debate is a force even in hard times.