46 members of the Cary Academy Speech and Debate team traveled to Greensboro on Saturday December 8th to compete in the Guilford County Challenge hosted by Northwest Guilford High School. After a day of accelerated competition the team emerged as the winner of third place sweepstakes and managed to make it home in time to beat the oncoming snow storm. The following students individual performances contributed to the team's placement:
Ritvik Nalamothu- 1st Place, JV Congressional Debate Chamber B
Aryan Nair and Abby Li- 1st Place, JV Public Forum Debate
Claudia Zimmerman-2nd Place, Extemporaneous Speaking
Katherine He-2nd Place, Declamation
Anisha Rustogi-3rd Place, Varsity Lincoln Douglas Debate
Safiya Alvi-3rd Place, JV Lincoln Douglas Debate
Emily Zhen-4th Place, Declamation
Alex Lim-6th Place, Declamation
Bayla Sheshadri-6th Place, Informative
Emily Wang-6th Place, JV Lincoln Douglas Debate
Andrew Lake and Kelsey Welch-6th Place, JV Public Forum Debate
Kavin Wodd-7th Place, JV Congressional Debate Chamber A
Jay Sagrolikar-8th Place, Varsity Lincoln Douglas
Folu Ogundipe-9th Place, JV Lincoln Douglas
JR Cobb & Andrew Holland-10th Place, JV Public Forum Debate
Brian Wei-11th Place, JV Lincoln Douglas Debate
Miles Ramee & Sanjna Jotwani-15th Place, JV Public Forum Debate

48 members of the Cary Academy Speech & Debate team traveled to Fairfax Virginia over the weekend of November 30th thru December 3rd to compete in the Patriot Games Classic hosted by George Mason University. The team had an outstanding showing placing 6th in overall sweepstakes for the second consecutive year. There were 19 students who advanced to the elimination rounds in 7 different events, the most ever for the team at this tournament. Matthew Schaeffer and Isaac Fan reached the semifinals of Public Forum Debate placing in the top 4 of 149 teams. In Lincoln Douglas Debate CA had five debaters reach the elimination rounds, the most of any school. Will Aarons reached the quarterfinal round, Anthony Guzzo the octafinal round, and Eric Xing, Jessica Zhong, and Viraj Shah were eliminated in the double octafinal round. In Student Congress Saajan Patel, RJ Jain, Aleksia Kleine, and Cade Spector advanced to the semifinals with Aleksia, RJ, and Cade also reaching the final round placing them in the top 18 out of 123 competitors. CA was the only school to advance three students to the final round. In the finals Aleksia placed 11th, RJ 13th, and Cade 15th respectively. In Extemporaneous Speaking Becca Segal and Cade Spector both reached the semifinal round placing them in the top 15 of 117 entries. Becca finished 7th overall and Cade 13th. Sarah George reached the semifinals of Declamation placing 11th out of 61 entries. She was joined in the elimination rounds of Declamation by Emily Zhen and Sonia Shah who were eliminated in the quarterfinals. Grace Wissink and Claire Ferris reached the elimination rounds of Oral Interpretation with Claire being eliminated in the quarterfinals, and Grace reaching the semifinal placing 13th out of 103 entries. Grace also broke in Program of Oral Interpretation reaching the quarterfinal round. In Informative Speaking Bayla Sheshadri and Nika Kostenko reached the quarterfinal round. Thank you to Head of School Dr. Mike Ehrhardt and Head of Upper School Robin Follet for judging and chaperoning the trip. And thanks as well as to parents Gloria Fan, Sheela George, Jeff Jenkens, and Nicole Spector, and alumni Jonathan Segal and Grey Spector for judging.