NCFL Grand Nationals

Fourteen members of Cary Academy’s Speech and Debate team traveled to Sacramento, California over this past weekend, May 27th-29th, to compete at the National Catholic Forensics League’s Grand National Tournament. The members of the team competed against students from all over the country in their respective events. This year, there were over 2,300 competitors from over 600 schools representing 31 different states.
 
​Students who attended the competition were:
 

• Grace Seidel and Claudia Zimmerman in Declamation
• Pauline Pauwels in Dramatic Performance
• Bharat Modi, Divya Vijayakumar, Viraj Garg, and Elizabeth Maydew in Extemporaneous Speaking
• Nate Jones, Jackson Stafford, Ryan Janssen, and RJ Jain in Student Congress
• Grey Spector, Grace Jin, and Khushi Surana in Lincoln Douglas Debate

                                                                                                                     
CA had its strongest showing ever at Grand Nationals, with 7 of these 14 students clearing to elimination rounds in their respective events!
 
In Student Congress, both Jack Stafford and Nate Jones were the champions of their preliminary chambers, allowing them to advance to semifinals where the top 60 out of 193 competitors competed for a chance to advance to finals. Jack was among the top 24 competitors in the semifinal round who advanced to the final session, where he placed 3rd overall.
 
In Extemporaneous Speaking, Bharat Modi and Divya Vijayakumar both advanced to the elimination rounds after placing in the top 48 out of 203 competitors during the preliminary rounds. Bharat was eliminated after the first elimination round, while Divya advanced to quarterfinals, placing her in the top 24.
 
In Lincoln Douglas Debate, all three CA entries (Grace Jin, Grey Spector, and Khushi Surana) advanced to elimination rounds by finishing in the top 32 out of 204 competitors after the preliminary rounds. Cary Academy was the only school at the tournament to have three students reach the elimination rounds of Lincoln Douglas. Grace and Khushi both loss in round of 32, while Grey won his round to advance to the round of 16. Grey was then eliminated in the round of 16 on a split 2-1 decision placing him 13th overall. Grace was also the top speaker in the tournament, as she went undefeated and received the highest ratings of any student in the tournament during the preliminary rounds.
 
To top it all off, Cary Academy was recognized as a Debate School of Excellence, which goes to the top 5 performing schools in the debate categories at the tournament!