Debate competed at two different tournaments last weekend, Sept. 10-11, at the Grapevine High School Speech and Debate Tournament and at the La Vernia Speech and Debate Tournament.

Grapevine Tournament is a National Level tournament where over 98 high schools from all over the United States travel to Dallas, TX to compete in this national qualifier.  At this competition there were over 2000 entries across the different events and our students placed in the top 10% of all competitors.

“My partner and I didn’t think we would win until we got to finals,” Riya Kumar ‘19 said. “It was outside of the Austin Circuit so people had different styles and we were introduced to a lot more variety.”

Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking

Semi Finalist: Jackson Freeman

Varsity Public Forum (PF) Debate

Octo Finalists: Neeha Bandlapalli & Krithika Shamanna

Varsity Lincoln Douglas (LD) Debate

Quarter Finalist: Dhruva Mambapoor

Octo Finalists: Saavan Nanavati

4th Place Speaker: Saavan Nanavati

9th Place Speaker: Dhruva Mambapoor

Varsity Policy (CX) Debate

Octo Finalists: Jack Shen & John (Joonhee) Cho

The debate team also did well in the La Vernia Speech and Debate Tournament. Here are the results:

Varsity Public Forum (PF) Debate

Quarter Finalists:

Elisa Baxter & Nathan Iyer

Pooja Engala & Madhuri Neralla

Varsity Lincoln Douglas (LD) Debate

2nd Place: Abby Grifno

Semi Finalist: Saket Myneni

Quarter Finalist: Richard Lai

Octo Finalists: Rohith Mandavilli

Varsity Policy (CX) Debate

1st Place: Riya Kumar & Catherine Lu

Semi Finalists: Katherine Alexander & Anjali Venkatesh

Quarter Finalists:

Vineeth Bandi & Aaron Griesdorf

Shea Li Dombrowski & Emily Gao