Speech and debate competes in series of invitationals

The school’s speech and debate team is starting 2016 with a flurry of tournaments. The team competed in five tournaments in January. The most recent were the California Forensics League tournaments held at Milpitas High School on Jan. 23-24, and the National Catholic Forensics Qualifier tournament held on Jan. 23.

At the CFL Super Debate held in Milpitas on Jan. 24, sophomores Austin Wang and Arun Ramakrishna had a 4-0 record in Varsity Parliamentary debate and earned a wildcard to the state qualifier tournament.

At the CFL Varsity Coast February Individual Events tournament on Jan. 23, sophomore Varun Vishwanath won first place in Oratorical Interpretation. Sophomore Divya Rallabandi won second place in the same category and seventh place in Original Oratory. Sophomore Kyle Wang placed fourth in National Extemporaneous. All three sophomores gained wildcards, or guaranteed spots, to this year's individual events state qualifier tournament.

Junior Siavash Yaghoobi placed first with a 4-0 record at the National Catholic Forensics Qualifier tournament on Jan. 23, held in Sacramento. He entered in Varsity Lincoln Douglas debate.

Students got plenty of practice and preparation for these tournaments from the three invitational tournaments held earlier in the month. The most recent invitationals were the Stanford Invitational and the James Logan Martin Luther King Invitational. Both ended on Jan. 18.  Approximately 24 teams and individuals attended the Stanford Invitational this year, while 17 attended the James Logan Invitational.

At the James Logan Invitational, freshman Arian Raje, Ruchi Maheshwari, Nevin Prasad, Roshan Verma and Wang moved on to the preliminary rounds in extemporaneous speaking. However, none made it to the semifinals round.

Rallabandi, Vishwanath and freshman Bijan Naimi all made it to the finals round in Oratorical Interpretation at the Stanford invitational. Vishwanath and Naimi ranked fourth and fifth, respectively in the tournament. Rallabandi won first place in the Oratorical Interpretation event at Stanford. Freshman Ronit Dey went onto the semifinals round for Oratorical Interpretation.

“In complete honesty, winning the Stanford Invitational in my event was something I never imagined doing,” Rallabandi said. “As a child, I struggled with issues in my confidence and speaking, even if it was as simple as answering a question in class. I visited multiple counselors, but speech has given me the confidence that no amount of counseling can ever provide, and to see my personal growth has been an amazing experience.”

At the same tournament, sophomore public forum debaters Sathvik Koneru and Karthik Ramachandran made it to the double-elimination round. Sophomores Ayush Aggarwal and Ramakrishna made it to the triples elimination round.

“It felt good [to move to the preliminary rounds] because we worked really hard before this tournament so it validated our work,” Ramachandran said. “Also, we got a pretty decent seed, so that was nice too.”

The Arizona State University (ASU) tournament took place from Jan. 7-9.

Public forum teams Ramachandran and Koneru, Aggarwal and Ramakrishna and Raje made the trip.

Aggarwal and Ramakrishna advanced past the preliminary rounds with a record of 4-2, moving on to the triples round. Ramachandran and Koneru had a 3-3 record in the preliminary rounds. Raje reached the final round, placing second out of all the extemporaneous speakers at the tournament.

These individuals and teams prepared extensively for the tournament in the weeks leading up to it. For instance, Aggarwal and Ramakrishna met for three hours every day over winter break to prepare by finding evidence and reading articles that were pertinent to January’s public forum topic: “On balance, economic sanctions are reducing the threat Russia poses to Western interests.”

They also participated in practice debates and worked with their coaches to improve their arguments. Raje, who has been competing since sixth grade, read and filed a multitude of articles and wrote and delivered many speeches leading up to the tournament.

Aggarwal said that the “stakes were really high” for this tournament since teams who qualify for the octo-finals round will automatically qualify to the Tournament of Champions, a selective tournament held each year for the best debaters.

“Because of the level [of competition], to be able to come so close to victory was actually pretty thrilling,” Raje said.