Students prepare for statewide tournament

Seniors Anjali Manghnani and Deepti Kannan qualified to the national speech and debate tournament during the national qualifying tournament at Bellarmine High School on March 20-22.

Manghnani qualified in original oratory, an event in which she delivered a 10-minute original speech on empathy. Kannan qualified in Lincoln Douglas debate, one-on-one debate about values and morals regarding the topic of food security. The national tournament will take place in June in Dallas.

In addition, four students qualified to the state championships, which will be held on April 17-19 in Murrieta, Calif. Seniors Sudeep Raj and Michael Ong qualified in parliamentary debate, and senior Supriya Khandekar and freshman Varun Viswanath qualified in oratorical interpretation during the state qualifying tournament, which was held at Leland from Feb. 27 to March 1.

As one of the only two Saratoga students who qualified for the national tournament, Manghnani feels ecstatic about her achievement.

“Qualifying to nationals was surreal,” Manghnani said. “This has been my dream since freshman year and I had no idea it would actually come true.”

In addition to the qualifiers, Khandekar and junior Ashvita Ramesh placed fourth and sixth respectively in original oratory. Sophomore Mitali Shanbhag and junior Jui Malwankar made it to the semifinals in original oratory and extemporaneous speaking.

National qualifying competitors had to place in the top three in their event at the tournament. Out of the approximately 21 schools that attended, Saratoga placed first in cumulative points for the tournament. Saratoga also placed fifth in CFL sweepstakes for the entire year.

“[Students] have all their coaches to thank for making it this far,” Manghnani said. “They’ve been [our] mentors.”

Each school gets to send its four best competitors in each event to the Coast Forensics League national qualifying tournament for our district. In debate events, participants are eliminated once they lose two rounds, and the tournament continues until there are three teams left standing.

Senior Rohith Krishna, junior Shrey Desai and freshman Austin Wang competed in Lincoln Douglas. Freshman Kyle Wang and junior Jayee Malwankar competed in extemporaneous speaking. Freshmen Divya Rallabandi and Arun Ramakrishna as well as Ong and Raj competed in public forum debate.

Not all the events were represented at the tournament; the varsity public forum teams had prior commitments, and few extemporaneous speech competitors attended.

In order to qualify for the state tournament, students competing in speech events must place in the top seven during the state qualifying tournament at Leland High School on Feb. 29. Students in debate are required to win enough debate rounds to be in the top eight.

Raj and Ong were undefeated in their parliamentary debate rounds at state qualifiers, qualifying for the state debate tournament.

“For parliamentary debate, we need to be updated on current events and be able to make arguments on either side of every major issue,” Raj said. “In order to prepare for states, [Ong] and I have been researching major issues in the US and around the world and preparing arguments on either side. We have also been practicing debating to become better speakers.”

Parliamentary debate was the only debate event that qualified; while public forum teams and Lincoln Douglas debaters attended, none of them qualified. There were state qualifiers from the speech team as well.

Viswanath placed second and Khandekar placed third in original interpretation. In addition, Khandekar and Shanbhag are alternates to the state tournament in original oratory, meaning that if an eligible finalist is unable to participate in the state tournament, they will be considered as replacements. Malwankar is an alternate for international extemporaneous speaking.

Currently, students are preparing for the state tournament as well as the national tournament.

The state tournament is a competition between the top seven or eight competitors in each event from the 11 leagues in California.

“I’ve been practicing hard for states,” Viswanath said. “The competition is tough, so I need to make sure everything [in my speech] is crisp and clean.”