Junior Alex Carter poses with his third speaker plaque at the Alta Silver & Black Invitational, which took place Dec. 2-4. He was also a quarterfinalist in the Lincoln Douglas division of the debate tournament. – Jennie SavageThe Palo Alto High School Debate Team looks forward to competing at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara this weekend, after achieving unprecedented success at the Alta Silver & Black Invitational in Sandy, Utah, this past weekend.

Freshman Travis Chen, junior Alex Carter and senior Lucas Chan all earned bids to Tournament of Champions, a prestigious national tournament for technical debate. The team’s performance at the tournament was one of the most successful national circuit tournaments in team history, according to Paly’s Director of Forensics, Jennie Savage.

“Other than winning the California State Championship two years ago, this was the most successful national circuit tournament in team history,” Savage said. “We broke all Paly records for TOC bids received.”

Even though the bids are given on an individual basis, debate is a team effort, according to Savage. Savage attributes the success at the tournament to the team’s ability to work together in order to achieve the debaters’ individual goals.

“Although LD debate is an individual competition, it’s truly a team effort,” Savage said. “Our debaters always work together to achieve our debaters’ individual goals and that’s why we are so strong and were able to pull off winning three bids at Alta.”

Teammates and coaches worked hard behind the scenes to get the three bids.

“Travis, Lucas and Alex had all their coaches and all of their teammates — Gregory Dunn, Alex Lenail, Esha Datta, Ana Carano, Parker Devine and Raymond Li — working very hard on their behalf once breaks [pairings for elimination rounds] were announced,” Savage said. “Their teammates did research, wrote arguments, scouted rounds, shared flows [notes from past debate rounds] and helped the team victory [become] possible.”

In order to ensure their participation in the TOC in May, each debater is required to attain a second bid, according to Savage.

“Our challenge now is for those debaters to earn their required second TOC bids in order to insure their participation in the TOC in May,” Savage said. “The rest of the technical debaters on the team will continue to pursue TOC bids as well.”

For background on the tournament, click here.