The Tarheel East District of the National Speech and Debate Association held its district qualifying tournaments on the weekends of February 22-23 (Speech, LD, and PF) and March 22 (Congress) respectively. The winners from this tournament qualified to represent the eastern half of North Carolina at the National Speech and Debate Tournament to be held in Overland Park Kansas the third week of June. CA had three students qualify to Nationals- Hannah Hubbard who was the champion of Lincoln Douglas Debate, Emma Ehrhardt who was the champion of Original Oratory, and Ted Waechter who was the runner up in the Senate of Congressional Debate. Several other students turned in outstanding performances in their events and just missed qualifying for Nationals. Nyal Patel was the first alternate in LD, Laura Cabana the second alternate, and Taylor Morin the fourth alternate. CA had the last four undefeated debaters in the tournament and half of the final 8. In Public Forum Maaya Dev and Daisy Gray reached the quarterfinal round before being eliminated. In Extemp Bharat Modi was the first alternate in International Extemp, Daniel Sheitman the 3rd alternate, and Diyva Vijaykumar the 4th alternate. In Domestic Extemp Bill Peebles was the second alternate, and Nate Jones the 3rd. Nate was also the first alternate in House 2 of Congressional Debate where Jack Stafford was the 3rd alternate, and Charlotte Waechter was the 5th alternate in House 3. This is the 14th straight year CA has qualified to compete in the National Speech and Debate Tournament, the longest such streak of any school in the Tarheel East District.
The CA Speech and Debate team had an outstanding showing at the Tarheel Forensic League State Championship tournament held February 28-March 1, 2014 at Pinecrest High School in Southern Pines. The team brought home three individual state championships in addition to placing 5th in overall sweepstakes and 2nd in debate sweepstakes. CA swept both divisions of LD with Laura Cabana adding a Varsity championship to the novice title she won a year ago, and Grace Jin's win in the novice division brought that title back to CA for a second straight year. CA was one ballot away from closing out the varsity division with Puj Adusumilli advancing to the semifinal round before losing on a 2-1 decision. Nyal Patel was a quarterfinalist in Varsity as well, and Taylor Morin reached the octafinal round before being advanced over by Adusumilli. CA had 4 of the 16 debaters who broke in Varsity, more than any other school. In Novice, Christof Ketchmark reached the octafinal round before being advanced over by Jin. In Congressional Debate Ted Waechter won his prelim chamber to advance to finals where he placed first winning CA's first ever state title in Congressional Debate. Bharat Modi was a semifinalist in both Extemp and Impromptu. Bill Peebles placed first the TFL Points Race in Extemporaneous Speaking for the second straight year winning what essentially amounts to a regular season championship for the state of North Carolina in that event.
Two CA students traveled to Cambridge over President's day weekend to attend the Harvard tournament which is the largest forensics competition in the world. Bill Peebles broke in Extemporaneous Speaking reaching the Double Octafinals
CA won its fifth sweepstakes title of the year at the William G Enloe High School Tournament held at Enloe HS in Raleigh on February 8, 2014. The team's victory was spearheaded by impressive closeouts of both Varsity and Novice LD, as well as strong performances in Congressional Debate including winning the first place in the Novice division. In the eight local tournaments CA attended as a team this season we placed first 5 times,second once, and third once, only failing to place in the top 3 once (5th at Northwest Guilford). Individual student winners were as follows:
LD- Puj Adusimilli- 1st Place, Varsity Nyal Patel- 2nd Place, Varsity Laura Cabana-3rd Place, Varsity Carrie Schellenberger-5th Place, Varsity Varun Kasula-7th Place, Varsity Grey Spector-10th Place, Varsity Henna Judge-11th Place, Varsity Ben Davalos Martinez-12th Place, Varsity Keegan Kerns-1st Place, Novice Christof Ketchmark-2nd Place, Novice Grace Jin-3rd Place, Novice PF- Kristin Andrejko & Abby Getz-6th Place, Varsity Kushi Surana & Jilly Eder-5th Place, Novice William Fowler & Jacob Henderson-8th Place, Novice Speech- Bill Peebles-2nd Place, Extemporaneous Speaking & 3rd Place, Impromptu Speaking Bharat Modi-5th Place Extemporaneous Speaking Cole Sweetwood-6th Place, Extemporaneous Speaking Emma Ehrhardt-6th Place, Original Oratory Congress- Gregg Cornett-5th Place, Varsity Spencer Reed-6th Place, Varsity Ruhi Dholakia-1st Place, Novice John Peterson-5th Place, Novice Bill Peebles attended the first Corona Rostrensis hosted by the Charlotte Latin School on February 1, 2014. He reached the finals of Extemporaneous Speaking placing 6th.
10 Cary Academy students traveled to New York City the weekend of January 24-26 to compete in Columbia University's Invitational tournament. Ted Waechter and Austin Lawrence both reached the finals of Congressional Debate with Ted winning finals to place first. Puj Adusumilli and Hannah Hubbard both reached the elimination rounds of Lincoln Douglas Debate with Puj advancing to the octafinal round before losing, while Hannah dropped in the double octafinal round.
CA had an outstanding showing at the Laird Lewis Invitational hosted by Myers Park High School in Charlotte placing 6th overall as a school out of 51 schools from 10 different states. Bill Peebles reached the finals of both Extemporaneous and Impromptu Speaking placing 5th in both. Nate Jones was also a semifinalist in Impromptu.In Congressional Debate three CA students advanced out of prelims. Ted Waechter won his prelim chamber to advance, Jack Stafford was runner-up in his prelim chamber, and Matt Aupperle was 6th in his prelim chamber. Ted advanced all the way to finals where he placed third, while Jack and Matt just missed advancing out of their semifinal chamber. Grace Jin reached the final round of Novice Lincoln Douglas Debate before losing on an extremely close 3-2 decision. Keegan Kerns also broke in Novice LD where he reached the quarterfinals before being advanced over by Jin. In Varsity LD Puj Adusumilli was undefeated in prelims and reached the octafinal round before losing, and Hannah Hubbard reached the quarterfinal round. Adusumilli and Hubbard also competed in the LD Challenge held after the regular tournament. Hubbard placed second as she reached the final round before losing a round.
Cary Academy had an outstanding showing at the Guilford County Challenge winning the varsity divisions in both Lincoln Douglas and Public Forum Debate. Daisy Gray and Maaya Dev were the champions in Varsity Public Forum Debate and Nyal Patel was the champion in Varsity LD. Puj Adusumilli was second in Varsity LD as CA closed out that division. In addition Laura Cabana was 5th, and Grey Spector 6th. In Varsity PF the teams of Sam Title and Neil Lewis and Miles Lambert and Shane Stephens were 8th and 10th respectively. In Novice LD Sindhoor Ambati was 2nd and Grace Jin was 4th and the top speaker. Calvin Ma and Christof Ketchmark were 9th and 11th respectively. Emma Ehrhardt was 5th in Original Oratory. The team placed 5th place in overall sweepstakes out of 43 schools.
15 members of the Cary Academy Speech and Debate team ventured to our nation's capital to compete in the Patriot Games hosted by Geroge Mason University. Despite having to deal with an intense winter storm the team turned in some outstanding performances with several students advancing to the elimination rounds in their respective events. CA had four LDers advance to the elimination rounds, tied for the most of any school. Andrew Glosson and Hannah Hubbard reached the octafinal round before losing, and Puj Adusumilli and Carrie Schellenberger reached the double octafinal round. In Public Forum Debate the team of Sami Frankel and Ava Rosenbaum reached the Triple Octafinal round. Bill Peebles and Emma Ehrhardt reached the quarterfinals of Extemporaneous Speaking and Original Oratory respectively. Cary Academy won first place sweepstakes at the Massey Hill Classical Challenge hosted by Massey Hill Classical High School in Fayetteville on December 7th, 2013. The following student's individual placings contributed to the team's victory.
Ellie Buckner-1st Place, Extemporaneous Speaking; 5th Place, Impromptu Speaking Rachel Shelton-2nd Place, Extemporaneous Speaking; 1st Place, Impromptu Speaking Divya Vijaykumar-3rd Place, Extemporaneous Speaking Laura Cabana-2nd Place, Lincoln Douglas Calvin Ma-3rd Place, Lincoln Douglas Jack Lattimore-6th Place, Lincoln Douglas Gregg Cornett-5th Place, Comgressional Debate Spencer Reed-6th Place, Congressional Debate Alex Yang & Kevin Wu-6th Place, Public Forum Debate |
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