Dear Speech and Debate families,
Welcome to the third weekly email of this year! We hope you’re having a great winter break so far and are enjoying the snow.
Stuyvesant Speech and Debate had a very busy December, attending both the Princeton and Ridge debate invitationals. Give your support to the competitors, who did amazing, and the entire team for their cheering. A ton of the formats are also holding parties or Secret Santas, so get ready for the holiday spirit!
In time for the giving season, we’d appreciate a donation to keep the team running. Hopefully we will get a little miracle and start off well for the new year!
You can donate directly to the Stuy S&D family through the following link: stuyalumni.org/givespeechanddebate. If your company offers a matching program, the Tax ID is 13-3509279. Once again, thank you for any support, monetary or otherwise.
As a reminder, please mark qlo50@stuy.edu, jlin56@stuy.edu, and hmancini50@stuy.edu as safe senders so that you can be kept up to date with our team’s activities! And as always, information and contact information for questions can be found on our website. We’ve also uploaded the information packet from the kickoff meeting to the homepage! If you want more photos and memories from either Princeton or Ridge, check out our Instagram page, @stuyforensics, run by our lovely Renae!
Take care to stay warm in this cold weather!
Sincerely,
The S&D Team
Team Updates
Extemp:
Stuy Extemp had a massive showing this December! At the Princeton Invitational, senior Matthias Gross, sophomores Caitlyn Chan, Joya Liu, Melanie Xie, and Nuoyan Chen, and Junior Myles Vuong, who placed as a semi-finalist, competed! We had amazing team experiences from the hotel lobby to the Princeton campus. Many extempers also competed at Chapin High School this Saturday! Congratulations to sophomores Alina Dong, Elina Siu, and Nusaibah Karim and freshmen Edison Jiang and Samuel Bokor for advancing to finals! It was many novices' first tournament experience. Go Stuy Extemp!
Public Forum:
Stuyvesant PF had an amazing time at Princeton! Congrats to our novice CHAMPIONS, Calista Harrington and Arya Rajda. Zachary Massim and Sasha Silakov made Novice Octas and Astrid Harrington and Helen Mancini made Varsity Quarterfinals! We had similar success at Ridge. Congratulations to juniors Annie Li and Solomon Binyaminov for CHAMPING the tournament in varsity! Seniors Astrid Harrington and Helen Mancini also broke, making it to doubles. Sophomores Ethan Zheng and Archana Ovitigala also broke and made it to octafinals! PF killed it, and we can’t wait to start preparing for our upcoming tournaments in January.
Congress:
Stuy Congress had an outstanding performance across the grade levels at Princeton! Junior Ellis Thompson reached the finals, securing his final bid to the Tournament of Champions. Seniors Daniel Prizant and Jia Lin, and Juniors Raymond Chen and Louis Oh-Aronson, along with Sophomores Lyla Storm and Eric Lam, were all semi-finalists, showcasing their exceptional skills. A special shout-out to Lyla Storm, Eric Lam, and Catherine Chan for excelling at their first-ever national tournament—a fantastic start to their journey! The team had an incredible time, and we’re eager to see even more exciting results in the future!
Lincoln Douglas:
Stuy LD had a great time at the Princeton Invitational! Emily Harsono had a great showing, making Novice Quarters, while Chloe Wang made Novice Octas. Also in the Novice division, Emily Johnson made doubles. In the Varsity division, Daniel Zheng made doubles, closing out an overall amazing result for the Stuy LD team! At Ridge, LD had its strongest team showing yet! All 5 of our varsity competitors, Alexis Qian, Kiren Sitwala, Emma Lin, Evelyn Lifton, and Mufei Yu, got 3-2 records or better, and 4 of them broke into elimination rounds. Alexis advanced to quarterfinals before losing on a questionable decision. Mufei also won 3rd speaker! In Novice LD, Agastya Dhondiyal, Yuming Chen, and Horace Chen all had strong showings despite this being their first overnight tournament. We’re busy at work preparing for the next tournament and looking forward to another year of Speech and Debate in 2025!
Parli:
Stuy Parliamentary did amazing during the Ridge debates and had a ton of fun. Adrian Turkedjiev and Zeke Abaramowicz made Quarters, beating out stiff competition. Both Adrian Turkedjiev and Lisa Burdi got top ten speaker awards! Parli is looking forward to training and competing in more tournaments, as well as enjoying this well earned winter break!
Policy:
Policy had a blast at Ridge! In Novice, Angelica Pan and Abir Mondal placed 6th and 9th speakers, respectively, finishing in 5th place as a team, one seed away from breaking!
Our varsity also had a strong showing. Rahul Kissoon and Kassandra Sinchi made it all the way to finals before losing on a close 2-1 decision. Rahul got 4th speaker, and Kassandra took 8th! Shoutout to Amrit Das and Aruna Vaithilingam, as well as Chloe Liang and Amelia Basith, for going 3-2 and getting really close to advancing to elimination rounds. We look forward to even more tournaments after the break!
Speech:
The Speech team ROCKED at two tournaments this month: the Princeton Invitational and the Chapin CFL. At Princeton, Junior Olivia Cisse won 6th in Programmed Oral Interpretation and Junior Audrey Hilger won 13th in Dramatic Interpretation. At Chapin in Declamation, Freshman Zoe Yoon won 4th and Sophomore Jaydon Mei won 2nd, both earning half-quals. Sophomore Mariya Markova also CHAMPIONED in Declamation, fully qualifying for States! In JV Oral Interpretation, Sophomore Milan Gittens CHAMPIONED, also fully qualifying! In Original Oratory, junior Amanda Greenberg also CHAMPIONED, earning a half-qual. Finally, in Varsity Oral Interpretation, Senior Prajusha Azeem won 5th and Sophomore Ananya Gupta won 4th. We are immensely proud of our entire team and we will continue to work hard for our next tournaments. Stay tuned!
Thank you for taking the time to read this update! We appreciate your time and effort to support the team. Don’t hesitate to reach out with any concerns or ideas.
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If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback, don't hesitate to reach out to us by responding to this email or contacting stuy4n6@gmail.com and jlin56@stuy.edu. We will get back to you as soon as possible.
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