Wake Forest 2014

15 Cary Academy students traveled to Winston-Salem over the weekend of September 12th to the 14th to participate in the National Earlybird Tournament hosted by Wake Forest University. CA began its competitive season with an impressive showing led by sophomore Grace Jin who was the champion of the Junior Varsity of Lincoln Douglas Debate. This is the first time a Cary Academy LDer has won a title at the National Earlybird, and the program's second title in any event at this major early season event. Jin was joined in the elimination rounds of JV LD by sophomore Keegan Kerns who reached the quarterfinals before losing on a split 2-1 decision. Sophomore Jack Stafford reached the finals of Congressional Debate after being the runner-up in his preliminary chamber. Junior Bharat Modi was a semifinalist in both Extemporaneous and Impromptu Speaking barely missing out on advancing the to final round of Extemp by only 1 rank. In Public Forum Debate the team of Miles Lambert('16) and Shane Stephens('16) reached the Double Octafinal Round before losing on a split decision to the eventual tournament runners up. The team of Daisy Gray ('15) and Ethan Kerns ('15) were 4-2 but failed to advance to the elimination rounds based on points. Daisy was the 13th place speaker out of 254 Public Forum Debaters. The team was 9th Place overall out of 78 schools from 17 different states. Thanks to the first family of Cary Academy Speech & Debate the Nixes as Shawn, Shannon, and Kelsey ('07) all judged for CA during the tournament, as well as to Puj Adusumilli ('14) who also judged.

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