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Paly performed solidly at VBT, which primarily rewards technical debate, according to Director of Forensics Jennie Savage. The goal for the team is to become adept at both persuasive and technical debate, so awards and honors at the tournament was were not the main focus.
“This year was no surprise for us – we did well without clearing into any elimination rounds, and we got excellent preparation for two upcoming national-draw tournaments [Stanford and Cal] at which we generally do well and which are looking for well-rounded debaters,” Savage said.
The team took six debaters that were interested in working on their technical debate skills, according to Savage. Freshman Travis Chen, sophomores Ben Hawthorne and Allen Zheng, junior Max Siegelman, and seniors Chloe Chen and Lucas Chan competed at VBT. Chan was honored as the top seventh speaker of the tournament.
Overall, Paly debate has had a promising start to the new year, according to Savage. The team earned three bids to the Tournament of Champions and speaker awards at the Alta Silver & Black Invitational from Dec. 2-4. Soon after, Paly had two debaters make the Lincoln Douglas debate semifinals at the regional-draw Santa Clara Invitational.
In addition, the policy debate team of juniors Gregory Dunn and Alex Lenail reached the quarterfinals at SCU with Dunn winning the top speaker award at the tournament. Overall, almost all of the speech team members won semifinals or finals trophies, according to Savage.
With the great accomplishments at tournaments thus far, the team continues to refine skills and set its sights on tournaments down the road. The VBT was a platform for the debaters to practice skills that they will use in future tournaments, including the Stanford and Cal Invitationals.
“The goal of VBT for our team is always to get ready for Stanford and Cal where we have been historically competitive,” Savage said. “VBT helps us come into contact with some of the most technically proficient debaters in the nation and that’s a huge help for us adapting to that style. The goal at SCU for the Paly team has been to get into late elimination rounds and/or win the whole thing which we’ve done a number of times.”
Hawthorne used VBT as a learning experience and as a chance to improve.
“The definite highlight was that this was a chance to learn,” Hawthorne said. “It was one of the hardest tournaments in the nation, so none of us expected to do well. We all got to learn how to debate different types of arguments, learn how to debate better people and just all around improve our skills.”
The debaters are now able to make adjustments for the upcoming competitive tournaments. Hawthorne cites the lack of preparation as the teams’ “biggest flaw” and said that they have committed to working harder in preparation for the highly competitive Cal and Stanford tournaments.
Throughout the year, the goals don’t change for Paly speech and debate, according to Savage.
“Our top goals [are] to learn at every practice and with every round we debate, to compete with integrity and humility, to work as a team, to be the best, most well-rounded debaters we can be, and to test our limits while saying things worth saying publicly,” Savage said.
Looking forward, the policy team of Dunn and Lenail will attend the Golden Desert Invitational from Feb. 4-6 in Las Vegas.