We always start our second semester of competition with a weekend dedicated to our novices. The novice invitational weekend is the last chance for our newest members to compete against only other new members.
Friday night the kids competed in their individual events and Saturday they debated. All rounds at this tournament are judged by the varsity members around the district, so it is a learning experience for both the novices and the varsity. We had a great weekend!
The following students received awards during the novice weekend:
Ben Haug:
- 1st Place Interpretation
- 2nd Place Radio
Levi Job:
- 6th Place Interpretation
- 6th Place Prose Reading
Matt Segasture:
- 5th Place Radio
- Lindsey Trieu:
- 2nd Place Prose Reading
Madhumathi Vijayalingam:
- 1st Place Prose Reading
The following student earned his next degree in the National Speech and Debate Association:
- Matt Segasture: Degree of Excellence
The team took only six novice students to compete at the tournament and walked away with seven awards. Percentage-wise, we were pretty fantastic! There were 12 schools in attendance at the novice invitational on Friday night and if sweepstakes were awarded that night, we would have been in the top five. For such a small team, that is pretty awesome. Our novices are young and excited, so they are going out and crushing the competition from larger schools. We had two first place finishers at the tournament – congratulations Ben and Madhu! We also had two students that took awards in both events they entered – congratulations Ben and Levi!
In addition to being so proud of our novice competitors, we had three varsity members that gave up a free weekend (and those are rare in debate!) to go judge. Kyra, Angeles, and Meghan all judged for us this weekend and were able to learn what it is like to sit on the other side of the competition. Good work varsity!
Fun weekend with the novices! pic.twitter.com/acjFbPSTjU
— Brentwood Debate (@DebateRhaug) January 7, 2017
Awesome varsity judges! Thanks Angeles, Meghan, and Kyra! pic.twitter.com/qW71xpjbbl
— Brentwood Debate (@DebateRhaug) January 7, 2017
Congrats on novice events awards to Ben, Madhu, Matt, Lindsey, and Levi! pic.twitter.com/89LJFVjOnP
— Brentwood Debate (@DebateRhaug) January 7, 2017
Novice weekend! #packapunch pic.twitter.com/xCaiYPqLDu
— Brentwood Debate (@DebateRhaug) January 7, 2017
Congratulations to our awesome debate team! Thank you, especially, Robyn, for your direction and commitment. You’ve done an amazing job.