15 members of the Cary Academy Speech and Debate Team traveled to Gainesville Florida over the weekend of October 27-29 to compete in the Florida Blue Key Tournament hosted by the University of Florida. Eric Xing was the champion in Novice Lincoln Douglas Debate completing the weekend with a 9-1 record and winning the final round on a 2-1 decision. This is the fourth time a CA debater has won this title, and the sixth straight time that one has advanced to the final round of this event. Eric was joined in the elimination rounds of Novice LD by Jay Sagrolikar who was also the top seed after prelims, and Vicky Jin who was also the third place speaker. In Varsity LD Will Aarons reached the octafinals before losing on a spilt 2-1 decision and Viraj Shah was eliminated in the triple octafinals on a 2-1 decision as well. In Student Congress Jonathan Segal and Saajan Patel advanced to Semis, and Jonathan was the winner of his preliminary chamber. Becca Segal broke in both Domestic and Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking before being eliminated in the octafinals of both.

CA won overall sweepstakes for the second week in a row at the second Dogwood League tournament of the year hosted by South View High School on Saturday October 21st. The following students who placed in their respective events contributed to the team's overall victory:
Sullivan Morgus-1st Place, Varsity LD
Vicky Jin-1st Place, Novice LD
Becca Segal-1st Place, Extemporaneous Speaking
Shanelle Jayawickreme-2nd Place, Declamation
Eric Xing-2nd Place, Novice LD
Riya Thomas & Isaac Fan-2nd Place, Varsity PF
RJ Jain-2nd Place, Student Congress Chamber A
Addie Esposito-3rd Place, Varsity LD
Grace Seidel-3rd Place, Original Oratory
Aleksia Kleine-3rd Place, Student Congress Chamber B
Ava Autry-3rd Place, Program of Oral Interpretation
Bayla Sheshadri-4th Place, Novice LD
Nica Kostenko-4th Place, Declamation
Sarah George- 5th Place, Declamation
Elizabeth George-5th Place, Original Oratory
Saajan Patel-5th Place, Student Congress Chamber B
Alex Jones-5th Place, Oral Interpretation
Matthew Schaeffer & Aditya Surana- 5th Place, Varsity PF
Sam Corkey & Ritvik Nalamouthu- Honorable Mention, Novice LD

Six Cary Academy students traveled to New York City over the weekend of October 13th thru 15th to compete in in the New York City Invitational hosted by Bronx Science High School. Becca Segal reached the quarterfinals of Extemporaneous Speaking placing her in the top 20 of 65 competitors. Thank you to parents Maureen Aarons and Bob Mermelstein for judging and chaperoning on the trip.

Cary Academy was the overall sweepstakes champion of the first of six Dogwood Speech and Debate League regular seasons tournaments hosted by East Carteret High School on Saturday October 14th. The team's effort was led by a dominate performance in Lincoln Douglas Debate with CA winning both the Varsity and Novice divisions. Viraj Shah was the champion in Varsity and Anisha Rustogi was the champion in Novice. Salma Said was 3rd in Varsity, and CA swept the top 6 in Novice with Vicky Jin placing second, Shannon Jenkins third, Emily Zhen fourth, Jay Sagrolikar fifth, and Eric Xing sixth. CA also swept Public Forum Debate with Matthew Schaeffer and Kevin Chen winning Varsity and Olivia Willard and Han Zhang winning Novice. In Student Congress Jonathan Segal placed first, Aleskia Kleine third, and Saajan Patel sixth. In speech Claudia Zimmerman was the champion in Extemporaneous Speaking, and Olivia Zimmerman and Savannah Lu were fourth and sixth in Declamation respectively.