Dear Speech and Debate families,
Welcome back to Speech and Debate! We began the 2023-2024 season by recruiting over 250 new members, bringing us to a grand total of over 400 members. This is the largest the team has ever been, and we’re incredibly excited to start the season strong!
As a reminder, you can find all the team pictures, weekly updates, tournament schedules, permission slips/forms, and donation page on our website. Thank you for being a part of the Stuyvesant Speech & Debate family!
Team Updates
Parliamentary:
Parli had a great time debating at Yale this past weekend! Abel Bellows was 6th speaker, and three teams made it to elimination rounds: Adrian Turkedjiev and Everett Torrey made it to doubles, Lar Foster and Zeke Abaramowicz made it to octofinals, and Aditya Anand and Abel Bellows made it to quarterfinals. We look forward to kicking off the new season with our novices at NYPDL Oct Invitational Tournament in two weeks!
Public Forum:
Public Forum had an amazing time this weekend at Yale, the first competition of the year! In Junior Varsity, sophomores Eric Liu & Benjamin Yarden reached semifinals, Solomon Binyaminov & Jasmine Liang reached octofinals, and Annie Li & Elijah Choi reached doubles. In Varsity, juniors Alexander Panas & Brandon Tung as well as Helen Mancini & Astrid Harrington reached Quads, and seniors Kikyo Makino-Siller & Amrisha Roy reached trips. Looking forward, the PF team is excited for our first novice meeting of the year this Tuesday and competing at the NYC Invitational in two weeks!
Policy:
Policy debate had a great weekend at Yale! Although we had a rough start due to Friday’s flash flooding, which prevented some debaters from getting home in time for the first round, policy did not let the flooding stop us. Each team debated 6 rounds discussing fiscal redistribution and warmup up to the topic for this year! (Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase fiscal redistribution in the United States by adopting a federal jobs guarantee, expanding Social Security, and/or providing a basic income). Kassandra Sinchi was awarded 9th speaker, and we are excited to bounce back even stronger at Big Bronx!
Lincoln Douglas:
LD went to Yale this week! We started strong, with junior Daniel Zheng reaching Double Octofinals. Additionally, sophomores Yuna Lee, Galvin Chen, and Ellie Mak all went 3-3, an impressive feat given that this was their first-ever varsity tournament. We're looking forward to welcoming our next cohort of novices and LD success as we begin the season!
Congress:
While Congress was unfortunately unable to attend the Yale tournament due to the floods, we still had an incredibly eventful week! We kicked off the novice season with our first all-novice meeting, where we played some fun games and did some bill analysis! For our JV and Varsity members that would’ve been attending Yale, we hosted prep sessions, and worked through legislation together. As the season starts kicking off, we’re so excited to go to Big Bronx on the 13th!
Speech:
Speech this week competed at the Big Bronx NYC Invitational! Senior Erica Liu placed eighth in Program Oral Interpretation and ninth in Prose and Poetry - semi finalist in both.
Look forward to next week’s local tournament, where we will be introducing our novices to their first competition!
Extemp:
STUY GOT AN EXTEMP CHAMPION THIS WEEKEND! Eshaal Ubaid (Captain) took home the first place trophy from NYC Invitational, with two other extempers, Aleksey Olkhovenko and Kai Xuan Li, breaking to semifinals. Shoutout to Kai, who was ONE away from making finals! Our other competitors (Justin Ha, Myles Vuong, and JV Director Unique Zhang) all ranked in the very top half of prelims. We are so proud of everybody this weekend and hope to keep the momentum going with the novices at next weekend’s CFL!
Thank you for taking the time to read this update! We hope you found it informative and enjoyable. If you liked this update, please consider sharing it with your friends and family who may also be interested.
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