Northwood Debaters Sweep up Spots for State
With 80 competitors and 11 schools in attendance, the Northwood Speech and Debate team snatched four spots for the state competition in the Congress and Public-Forum Debate State Qualifier held on Saturday, Feb. 20.
Northwood hosted the debate tournament with great success. Students who placed in the top six in Student Congress, an individual event, and in the top two in Public-Forum, a partner debate, will have the opportunity to attend the State Tournament, which will be held in Bakersfield, Calif. this April.
Junior Angad Gogia and senior Aditi Ghai took 1st place and 5th place, respectively, in Congress. Seniors Kevin Kim and Josh Hwang took 1st place in Public-Forum, while seniors John Yu and Michael Lee right behind them in 2nd place. The six students will be representing the Orange County Speech League (OCSL) at State.
Junior Aditya Sharma placed 13th in Congress. The team of sophomores Arjun Ahuja and Sathvik Shastry and the team of junior Govil Gupta and sophomore Adelina Pak were semifinalists in Public-Forum.
This tournament was the first of the three State Qualifying tournaments for OCSL; the next two will be held on Feb. 26-27 and March 5-6.
“Our whole team has been working hard to prepare for [the] State Qualifiers, and it really paid off. Hopefully, we can take a few more spots to state in the next few weeks,” said Gogia.
Although the all-day tournament was held on the same day as the Timberwolf 5K and the rehearsals for upcoming musical “Gepetto and Son,” coaches Sheryl Sloate and Jeanna Heck the rest of the team ensured that it ran smoothly, without interference with the other events.
“It was stressful, before, to figure out the parking and all, but we made it work. We had a lot of support… I’m very proud of the team,” said Sloate.
