Speech and debate wraps up qualifications for Tournament of Champions

Two teams have qualified for the TOC in April, a competition that features 120 of the best high school public forum teams that qualify annually.

As the regular debate season wraps up on March 10, two public forum debate teams will be making their way to the Tournament of Champions (TOC) this April, preparing to articulate eloquent arguments, fiery speeches, and creative angles they hope will impress a panel of expert judges. The TOC is a prestigious national tournament that most debaters see as their end goal in high school; often, it takes years of preparation and practice to get in.

The first team, juniors Leonardo Jia and Ashish Goswami, will be representing the school for the third time. The second team, junior Skyler Mao and sophomore Anthony Luo, qualified for the first time this year.

To qualify for the TOC, public forum debaters need two Gold bids to enter the Gold Division and two Silver bids or one Gold bid to enter the Silver Division. Bids are earned through participating in national invitationals scattered throughout the season and by clearing elimination rounds. Both teams this year have qualified for the Gold Division, the older team qualifying last April and the cross-grade duo qualifying this February.

The first team, consisting of Goswami and Jia, already received a qualification last year when they gained three gold bids and an automatic qualification after making it to the Octafinals of the Gold TOC. They made Triple-Octafinals at the Stanford Invitational in February and quarterfinals at the TOC Digital Series #2, a qualifier tournament for this year’s TOC. Their largest accomplishment is their semifinalist run at the Annual Berkeley Invitational on Feb. 18, the deepest run the school has ever seen in this tournament according to past Tabroom records.

The second team, composed of Mao and Luo, attained two Gold bids and qualified for the Gold Division with a narrow win at the TOC Digital Series #2. They made quarterfinals at the tournament on Feb. 25 to snag their second gold bid. Both Luo and Skyler started debate in their 6th and 7th grade years, respectively, and this is the first time that they have qualified.

“Honestly, the feeling was great,” Mao said. “Before the judges announce their decision, the atmosphere is usually tense. However, my partner and I were overjoyed once the decision was made in the round.”

Two other Varsity Public Forums teams were unable to qualify for the TOC. Sophomore duo Jet Tsang and Bryan Zhao made Triples in the Stanford Invitational but lost to the champions on a 2-1 decision. Freshmen Sanyukta Ravishankar and Richard Chen could not make it to the elimination bracket at the Stanford Invitational and will be restarting their opportunity for a bid next year. Many incoming JV teams will make their way up to varsity next year, paving a strong start for the upcoming school year.

In addition to the star-studded debate team receiving the most coveted invitations in the debate world, the speech team has matched their counterparts’ speaking prowess by also sending several individuals to the Tournament of Champions. Sophomore Anagha Vitaldevara will be competing in Dramatic Interpretation, freshman Ovee Dharwadkar will be competing in Dramatic Interpretation and Original Oratory, junior Timothy Leung will be competing in Duo Interpretation and Program Oral Interpretation, junior Kinnera Potluri will be competing in Duo Interpretation (with Leung) and in Humorous Interpretation, and freshman Preksha Jain will be competing in Original Oratory.

The transition from JV to varsity is difficult, as JV teams don’t compete in the same division at tournaments; the JV division is seen as practice for debate newcomers, leading to a less competitive nature.

Jia, who often helps the JV teams, said he is shifting his focus to the TOC by actively on the evidence search for writing cases for the tournament to ensure accurate data and analytics. Both he and his partner are doing drills to prepare for all sorts of rounds at the TOC, including technical and layman rounds.

“My goal for the TOC is to prepare well enough to win and advance my debate skills at the tournament,” Jia said. “Looking past the TOC, my goals for incoming varsity teams is to get them to as many tournaments as possible and also make them self-sufficient and send them on their path to qualify for TOC.”