Each spring, the speech and debate team braces for the season’s close. With the end comes one of the first stepping stones to the most prestigious speech and debate tournaments a student can attend: States, where the best of the best in California gather in one area to compete non-stop for three days.
On March 4, 11 and 18, the culmination of an entire year’s worth of preparation reached its peak. The various divisions of the speech and debate team, Individual Events, Public Forum and Policy debate and Congress, participated at their respective events State Qualification tournament, which determined whether they will be allowed to participate in the State Tournament on April 27 to 29 held at Lowell High School in San Francisco.
Out of about 120 students in the speech and debate program, only nine made it to the state competition: seniors Anshu Siripurapu and Alexander Mabanta for Congress, Michael Chen for Domestic Extemporaneous; juniors Sujay Khandekar for Oratory Interpretation and Shauray Agrawal and Justin Chiang in Parliamentary debate; Ishaan Kolluri in Domestic Extemporaneous; Sanjeev Suresh for Congress and Neil Prasad for Foreign Extemporaneous.
Kolluri believes that his State Qualifications tournament, at Leland High School, was the most difficult tournament of the entire year, which only made his victory even sweeter.
“I was considerably nervous on the stage,” Kolluri said. “But when they announced my name, relief was the only thing left. I was really unsure whether I’d make it, given the huge competition and I was just glad that I pulled through.”
Khandekar, who placed third for Oratorical Interpretation, also had a similar sensation when he awaited the results of the competition.
“They announced all the non-qualifiers first and then they would announce the qualifiers,” Khandekar said. “So after hearing the whole string of non-qualifiers, I felt extremely happy and relieved [since I knew I had qualified].”
Now, the members are even more motivated to work hard.
“I prepared by anticipating topics for upcoming tournaments and preparing in advance for them,” Kolluri said. “I plan to do that with much higher intensity come late April, near the tournament.”
Khandekar does not intend on relaxing either.
“[My] plan [is] to keep working off of judge feedback and continually have the speech in the back of my mind before States,” Khandekar said. “I also have another competition that should give me more feedback in terms of what I need to continue to practice and work on.”
Kolluri plans on simply trying his best and hoping to succeed.
Overall, the entire speech and debate team performed above and beyond expectations.
“[The Individual Events team] got 13 people into the final round and four people, including myself, qualified for States,” Khandekar said.
Speech and debate head supervisor and Individual Events coach Erick Rector is also proud of the team.
“This is the first time ever a parliamentary debate team from SHS has ever qualified in States,” Rector said. “It’s pretty awesome.”