15 members of the CA Speech and Debate team traveled to Fayetteville on February 24th to compete in Tarheel East District National Qualifying Congress hosted by Massey Hill Classical High School. For the fourth year in a row CA qualified 2 students to participate in the National Student Congress as well as won sweepstakes for the District Congress tournament. Ben Lipson and RJ Jain will represent the Tarheel East District at Nationals in Fort Lauderdale Florida in June after being named the champions of House 2 and House 3 respectively. In addition Cade Spector was the first alternate in the Senate, Lexi Kleine was the first alternate in House 1, and Saajan Patel was the second alternate in House 1. Jonathan Segal placed 5th in the Senate and Alex Knott placed 6th in House 3 to round out CA's placements. CA was named the winner of the Congress Sweepstakes award for overall best team performance for the fourth straight year.
Nine members of the Cary Academy Speech and Debate team traveled to Charlotte over the weekend of February 24th to compete in the second annual Steven Davis Invitational hosted by Ardrey Kell High School. CA had an outstanding showing in Lincoln Douglas Debate as Will Aarons was named the tournament champion after winning the final round on a 2-1 decision. Will reached the final round by advancing over Viraj Shah on a coaches decision in the semifinal round. Oonagh Stevans just missed breaking after earning a 3-1 record and finishing prelims ranked 7th. In addition Will was the first place speaker, and Viraj was second.
20 members of the Cary Academy traveled to Cambridge Massachusetts to compete in the invitational tournament hosted by Harvard University over the weekend of February 16th -19th. Competing against students from 298 schools from 38 different states 7 CA students advanced to the elimination rounds in their respective events. RJ Jain and Lexi Kleine both advanced to the quarterfinals of Congressional Debate after placing 3rd and 5th in their preliminary chambers respectively. Ben Lipson and Saajan Patel both just missed out on clearing after placing 7th in their chambers. In Public Forum Debate the team of Arm Kassam and Matt Schaeffer reached the triple ocatfinal round of the varsity division before eliminated on a split 2-1 decision, and the team of Georgia Moorhead and Han Zhang reached the ocatfinals of the novice division before being knocked out on a spilt decision. Finally in Lincoln Douglas Debate Will Aarons was the 4th place speaker and advanced to the triple octafinal round where he also lost on a split 2-1 decision.
45 members of the Cary Academy Speech and Debate team traveled to Fayetteville on Saturday February 10th to participate in the final Dogwood Speech and Debate league tournament of the season hosted by Cumberland Polytechnic High School on the campus of Fayetteville Technical Community College. The team had it strongest showing of the season winning first place sweepstakes while earning more the double the points of the second and third place teams combined. CA students won eight different events, as well as closed out the top two spots in Declamation, Extemporaneous Speaking, Varsity Lincoln Douglas Debate, Varsity Public Forum Debate, and Student Congress Chamber B. The following individual student placements contributed to the teams victory: Grace Wissink- 1st Place, Dramatic Interpretation Caroline Spancake- 1st Place, Informative Speaking Sarah George- 1st Place, Declamation Savannah Lu- 2nd Place, Declamation Jonathan Segal-1st Place, Extemporaneous Speaking Becca Segal-2nd Place, Extemporaneous Speaking Oonagh Stevans- 1st Place, Varsity LD Anthony Guzzo- 2nd Place, Varsity LD Riya Thomas & Isaac Fan- 1st Place, Varsity PF Arm Kassam & Matthew Schaeffer- 2nd Place, Varsity PF Georgia Moorhead & Han Zhang- 1st Place, Novice PF RJ Jain- 1st Place, Student Congress Chamber B Lexi Kleine- 2nd Place, Student Congress Chamber B Cade Spector-3rd Place, Student Congress Chamber A Aesha Desai-2nd Place, Program of Oral Interpretation Eric Xing-3rd Place, Novice LD Viraj Shah-4th Place, Varsity LD Eesha Sachdeva-4th Place, Original Oratory Elizabeth George-5th Place, Original Oratory Ben Lipson-5th Place, Extemporaneous Speaking Vicky Jin-5th Place, Novice LD Shannon Jenkins-6th Place, Novice LD In addition to the recognition earned at the Dogwood #6 tournament several students were recognized for their season long achievements. Becca Segal was named the Points Race Champion in Extemporaneous Speaking and Viraj Shah was named the Points Race Champion in Lincoln Douglas Debate. This is second time a CA student has earned this title in each of these events. In addition CA had 11 students qualify for the National Catholic Forensic League Grand National tournament to be held in Washington, DC during Memorial Day weekend. These qualifiers were: Sarah George-Declamation Becca Segal-Extemporaneous Speaking Viraj Shah-Lincoln Douglas Debate Will Aarons-Lincoln Douglas Debate Anna Ibrahim-Lincoln Douglas Debate Caroline Spancake-Original Oratory Riya Thomas & Isaac Fan- Public Forum Debate Arm Kassam & Matthew Schaeffer-Public Forum Debate Cade Spector-Student Congress In addition Cary Academy was named the Carole Hamilton School of Excellence for the third straight year recognizing the top performing school throughout the entire league season. 21 members of the CA Speech and Debate team traveled to Newport, North Carolina on Saturday February 3rd to participate in the fifth Dogwood league tournament of the year hosted by Croatan High School. In spite of a much smaller squad then usual the team turned in a strong performance finishing 3rd overall in sweepstakes. The team's effort was led by Grace Wissink who was the champion of Dramatic Interpretation, as well as Shannon Jenkins and Emily Zhen who closed out Novice Lincoln Douglas placing first and second respectively. Saajan Patel was the runner up in Student Congress, where RJ Jain also placed 4th. In Varsity Lincoln Douglas Debate Anna Ibrahim placed 3rd and Will Aarons 4th, while Viraj Shah, Krishan Guzzo, and Michael Friedman all had winning records but failed to place on points. In Varsity Public Forum the team of Matthew Schaeffer and Arm Kassam finished 3rd. Tommy Hugus reached the final round of Informative Speaking placing 6th, and Nica Kostenko was named the top novice in Oral Interpretation.
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September 2023
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