Cary Academy welcomed 21 other schools to campus on the weekend of February 20-21 to compete in the Tarheel East District national qualifying tournament. Cary Academy had an extremely successful weekend turning in one of its strongest performances at the district tournament ever. CA was the overall tournament sweepstakes champions, as well as the winner in both the Speech sweepstakes and Debate sweepstakes categories. This was CA's first district championship since 2004, and the first time it has ever swept all three of these awards. CA ended the weekend with the following seven national qualifiers:
In addition to these qualifiers the overall team effort was extremely deep and spanned a wide variety of events. In the speech events CA competitors reached the final round in six different events, winning 2 events outright. Winners in the speech events included: Emma Ehrhardt- 1st, Original Oratory Divya Vijayakumar- 1st, International Extemporaneous Speaking Divya Vijayakumar- 2nd, United States Extemporaneous Speaking Emma Ehrhardt & Evan Ehrhardt- 3rd Place, Duo Interpretation Evan Ehrhardt- 3rd Place, Dramatic Interpretation Davidson Braswell- 3rd Place, United States Extemporaneous Speaking Rachel George-4th Place, United States Extemporaneous Speaking Alisha Abhayakumar- 4th Place, Informative Speaking Eve Taylor-6th Place, Dramatic Interpretation Rachel George- 6th Place, Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking Eesha Sachdeva- Semifinalist, Informative Speaking Davidson Braswell- Semifinalist, International Extemporaneous Speaking Viraj Garg- Semifinalist, United States Extemporaneous Speaking Viraj Garg- Semifinalist, International Extemporaneous Speaking In Public Forum Debate CA teams placed third and sixth. Mason Reece and Khushi Surana were the first alternates to nationals after placing third. The team of Miles Lambert and Shane Stephens placed 6th. In Lincoln Douglas Debate all four CA entries advanced to the late elimination rounds. Grace Jin tied for first, Sullivan Morgus was 5th, Grey Spector 6th, and Chelsea Fang 9th. CA's qualifications in Duo Interpretation and Dramatic Interpretation are the first in program history. CA has now qualified for the National Tournament for 16 consecutive years, the longest active streak in the Tarheel East District. CA also has a 16 year streak of having at least one Extemper qualify for Nationals, as well as a four year streak of qualifying in Lincoln Douglas Debate. 36 Cary Academy students traveled to Philadelphia over the weekend of February 12th - 15th to compete in the Liberty Bell Classic hosted on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The team had an amazing showing placing 4th overall in sweepstakes. Many students had strong performances to contribute to the the team's outstanding showing. These individual student placements were as follows:
Student Congress Jack Stafford- 2nd Place Nate Jones- 3rd Place Ben Lipson- Finalist Grace Wissnick- Semifinalist Anjali Velu- Semifinalist RJ Jain- Semifinalist Speech Divya Vijayakumar- 4th Place, Extemporaneous Speaking Eve Taylor- Semifinalist, Dramatic Performance Aesha Desai- Semifinalist, Oral Interpretation Kayla Hauessler- Quarterfinalist, Oral Interpretation Grace Siedel-Quarterfinalist, Declamation Pauline Pauwels- Quarterfinalist, Dramatic Performance Rachel George- Quarterfinalist, Extemporaneous Speaking Rachel Shelton- Quarterfinalist, Extemporaneous Speaking Davis Braswell- Quarterfinalist, Extemporaneous Speaking Lincoln Douglas & Public Forum Debate Miles Lambert & Shane Stephens- Double Octafinals, Public Forum Debate Riya Thomas & Alex Knott- Triple Octafinals, Public Forum Debate Grace Jin- Triple Octafinals, Varsity Lincoln Douglas Debate Chelsea Fang- Triple Octafinals, Varsity Lincoln Douglas Debate Viraj Shah- Double Octafinals, Novice Lincoln Douglas Debate Salma Said- 3rd Place Speaker, Novice Lincoln Douglas Debate In addition to the recognition earned by our students Alexandra Sencer was presented with an award by the tournament for her service to the forensics community. The Dogwood Speech and Debate League's regular season came to an end on Saturday February 6th as the sixth and final Dogwood Tournament was hosted by Cumberland International Early College on the campus of Reid Ross Classical School. CA had an amazing day capturing the inaugural Carole Hamilton School of Excellence Award given to the school who accumulates the most points throughout the league season, winning individual points race championships in six events, placing first in overall sweepstakes for the 5th time in six league tournaments this year, and qualifying 21 students to compete in the NCFL Grand Nationals tournament in Sacramento California in May. The individual points race champions were as follows:
Divya Vijayakumar-1st, Extemporaneous Speaking Viraj Shah- 1st, Novice Lincoln Douglas Debate Anthony Guzzo- 2nd, Novice Lincoln Douglas Debate Arman Kassam and Tori Borlase- 2nd, Novice Public Forum Debate Grace Jin- 2nd, Varsity Lincoln Douglas Debate Jonathan Segal-2nd, Extemporaneous Speaking Eesha Sachdeva- 3rd, Informative Madisen Placzkowski- 3rd, Declamation Viraj Garg- 3rd, Extemporaneous Speaking Eesha Sachdeva- 4th, Original Oratory Aesha Desai- 5th, Oral Interpretation Griffin Cece- 5th, Dramatic Interpretation Jayman Jethwa- 5th, Novice Lincoln Douglas Debate Aleksia Kleine- 6th, Student Congress; Best Novice Natalie Timinskas- 6th, Novice Lincoln Douglas Debate Chelsea Fang- 8th, Varsity Lincoln Douglas Debate |
AuthorThe Cary Academy Speech and Debate team is responsible for the content of this blog. Archives
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