Novice Debate Champs
November 12, 2009
Despite having only two teams entered, Southeast High School dominated the Girard novice debate tournament on Tuesday, November 10. Twenty-four teams competed. The Southeast novices captured first and second place, and they also won the squad's first sweepstakes trophy of the season. Southeast ended the tournament with 6 wins, just edging out a much larger Chanute squad for first place. Pittsburg ended in third.
Senior Lauren Rauniker and sophomore Kyle Stewart, competing in their second tournament together, ended the three-round tournament with a perfect 3-0 record, and 10 speaker points. Their record was the best overall, and good for a first place finish. Lauren and Kyle have now placed at both of their tournaments together, and Kyle has even topped that with some impressive results at a couple of tournaments with Ariel as his partner.
Sophomores Morgan Blanchard and Ariel Everett also debated their way to a perfect 3-0 record, and 12 speaker points. Their impressive performance locked up second place,
giving the Southeast squad the top two spots at the tournament. It too was the girls' second time debating together and their second time placing together. Ariel has additional awards from tournaments at Pittsburg and Caney while debating with Kyle.
This was an impressive performance by any standard. Everyone was obviously excited when we heard Morgan and Ariel won second place. And then to have Lauren and Kyle win first place just added to the excitement. Winning first place in sweepstakes made an already awesome night even better. With all of this success, there's no telling what the future might hold.
