NSDA districts

27 members of the Cary Academy Speech and Debate team traveled to Durham Academy over the weekend of March 23rd and 24th to attempt to qualify to represent the Tarheel East District at the 2019 National Speech and Debate Tournament held in Dallas, Texas in June. After an intense two days of competition Cary Academy added 6 more national qualifiers to the three who already qualified at the District Congress tournament in February. Those students are:

• Viraj Shah, Lincoln Douglas Debate
• Cade Spector, United States Extemporaneous Speaking
• Becca Segal, International Extemporaneous Speaking
• Grace Wissink, Program of Oral Interpretation
• Will Aarons, World Schools Debate
• Eric Xing, World Schools Debate

​In addition several other students were first alternates to Nationals in their respective events. These include: Caroline Spancake (Original Oratory), Caroline Spancake and Ava Autry (Duo Interpretation), Nica Kostenko (Informative Speaking), and Han Zhang and Georgia Moorhead (Public Forum Debate). Based on the strength of these performances and several other students who placed in their respective events CA was second in overall sweepstakes, second in debate sweepstakes, and third in speech sweepstakes.  The full results of the tournament are listed below:
Viraj Shah-3rd Place, Lincoln Douglas Debate
Eric Xing-9th Place, Lincoln Douglas Debate
Han Zhang and Georgia Moorhead-4th Place, Public Forum Debate
Isaac Fan and Matthew Schaeffer-6th Place, Public Forum Debate
Cade Spector-1st Place, International Extemporaneous Speaking & 2nd Place, United States Extemporaneous Speaking
Becca Segal-3rd Place, International Extemporaneous Speaking & 3rd Place, United States Extemporaneous Speaking
Claudia Zimmerman-6th Place, International Extemporaneous Speaking & 6th Place, United States Extemporaneous Speaking
Caroline Spancake- 5th Place, Original Oratory
Elizabeth George-Semis, Original Oratory
Bayla Sheshadri-Semis, Original Oratory
Nica Kostenko-5th Place, Informative Speaking
Ava Autry and Caroline Spancake-4th Place, Duo Interpretation
Grace Wissink-1st Place, Program of Oral Interpretation
Ava Autry-5th Place, Program of Oral Interpretation

CA has now qualified for the National tournament for 19 consecutive years, the longest active streak in the Tarheel East District. CA also has a 19 year streak of having at least one Extemper qualify for Nationals, as well as seven year streak of qualifying in Lincoln Douglas Debate.
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