Chesterton Tribune

 
 

CHS Debate team has seven qualified for Nationals

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The National Forensic League’s qualifying district debate tournament was held this past weekend at Penn High School. Five qualifying spots for the national tournament, held this year in Birmingham, Alabama, were still available. Chesterton came home with four of them.

In Public Forum debate, a partnered event, the team of Jessica Ratel-Khan and Ronald Kovach along with the team of McKenzie Richardson and Hannah Vasquez won the qualifying berths. The topic debated was whether the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United has improved our election process.

In the solo event of Lincoln-Douglas, Eric Dreischerf won the qualification tournament. The other spot went to Madison Reed, of Fort Wayne Carroll high school. The students debated whether the focus of the criminal justice system should be predicated on rehabilitation or retribution.

In the partnered event of Policy debate, Simon Andrews and Zach Bogich qualified for the national tournament after debating ways in which the US could fund investment in our transportation system.

Chesterton won the overall team sweepstakes award, with Fort Wayne Carroll coming in second place, followed by Fort Wayne Southside. This will be Dreischerf’s third consecutive national tournament and his second competition in the event of Lincoln-Douglas. All other qualifiers will be attending the national tournament for the first time.

Although there are a limited number of qualification spots, the rest of the Chesterton team performed extremely well, oftentimes representing the toughest competition to the eventual winners. Receiving awards and recognition in Policy debate were Emily Percifield and Kaley Brown (1st alternates), Elaine Tagert and Humaira Khan (3rd), and Nadia Mario and Katherine Bolek (4th).

In Lincoln-Douglas, Corinne Leopold (2nd alternate), Nick Peterson (6th), and Don Reinert (7th) all placed.

In Public Forum, Taryn Trusty and Miranda Whah (3rd) and Savannah Tipton and Matt Eggers (5th) received awards.

This was Chesterton’s fourth tournament in January, some of the highlights from earlier in the month included Tim Vincent and Joel Peterson winning three straight Novice Debate tournament championships. Mario and Bolek went undefeated at the IUN tournament. The Public Forum teams of Whah and Trusty went undefeated at the Plymouth Tournament, while Kovach and Ratel-Khan were undefeated at the IUN and Ben Davis Tournaments. In Lincoln-Douglas, Galen Wong, Christopher Krause, and Brad Moore placed first, second, and third in the IUN open division. In the varsity division, Dreischerf, Abby Burke, and Leopold accomplished the same feat.

There are two more qualifying tournaments later this year, one for Congressional debate and one for Speech. Next week the team travels to Kokomo for the State debate tournament. Chesterton has won five consecutive state titles as a team.

 

 

Posted 1/29/2013

 

 

 
 
 

 

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