Durham academy 2019

30 members of the Cary Academy speech and debate spent the Martin Luther King holiday weekend competing against students from 59 other schools representing 16 states at the 5th annual Cavalier Invitational hosted by Durham Academy. The team finished as the sweepstakes runner up based on strong finishes in both speech and debate events. Becca Segal broke to finals in 3 speech events finishing as the champion in Extemporaneous Speaking, the runner up in Impromptu Speaking, and third in Duo Interpretation with Margalit Mermelstein. Cade Spector broke to finals in both Extemporaneous and Impromptu Speaking placing 4th in Extemp and 6th in Impromptu. Bayla Sheshadri broke to finals in both Original Oratory and Informative Speaking placing 6th in both. Anna Ibrahim reached the final round of Impromptu Speaking placing 4th, as well as the semifinals of Original Oratory; and Caroline Spancake reached the final round of Oral Interpretation placing 6th, as well as the semifinals of Original Oratory as well. Claudia Zimmerman was also a semifinalist in Extemporaneous Speaking. On the debate side both RJ Jain and Saajan Patel advanced to the final round of Congress with RJ finishing 4th overall, and Saajan 7th. The team of Matthew Schaeffer and Isaac Fan were semifinalists in Public Forum Debate, as well as finished 5th place in the Survivor Challenge Public Forum Round Robin. In Lincoln Douglas Debate Colin Zhu reached the quarterfinal round, Viraj Shah the octafinal round, and Shannon Jenkins the double octafinal round. In addition Viraj Shah was the 7th place speaker, Colin Zhu 8th, and Will Aarons 10th. Thank you to all the parents who judged as well as alumni Evan Ehrhardt, Alex Knott, and Ben Lipson for judging as well.