This past weekend, the Washington Urban Debate League did a bunch of things it had never done before: 

• Host an in-person qualifier for the Tournament of Champions
• Host an in-person qualifier for the Tournament of Champions….at the same time as a local tournament
• Host an in-person qualifier for the Tournament of Champions…..at the same time as a local tournament, while also having a bunch of new teams debut at the same time. 

Veteran’s Day weekend 2022 was so eventful in the Greater Washington Debate Community, we’re going to split our coverage — this post will just cover the local competition. You can read more about the regional competition here. 

You’d think that the WUDL Thanksgiving Throwdown would be a bit smaller, with most of the Varsity and JV Division off in the regional competition. 

You’d be wrong. 

With a number of teams growing, and a number of schools making their debuts, this was the largest local tournament this season, even with most of the league’s most experienced debaters elsewhere (in the building, Eastern is a huge, gorgeous space we were very excited and appreciative to host a competition in), and that we only had two divisions (Novice and Rookie). 

We are excited to welcome new teams that made their debuts this weekend: 

• Cardozo
• Center City Capitol Hill
• Creative Minds (since Spring 2021)
• Eliot Hine

Center City Trinidad went to the first tournament of the year after two practices, a bold move for any coaching team. They won a speaker award, their kids won a few rounds, and it was a solid debut. At EL Haynes, their students again won a speaker award or two, and they had one team with a winning record. This weekend was their coming out party, their announcement that they’re a team to be taken seriously in the competitive ranks of the WUDL and a competitor for Middle School Nationals Qualifying spots. 

Coach Brown and Coach Johnsons’ team has the right to walk with some swagger after all of the hardware they just brought home, though I hope they brought a big enough bag to carry it all. Its easy to train a single pair of students to do well and have a winning record. It is strong, equitable coaching that gets 5/6 entries to all have winning or better records. 

• Williams and Elaroussi (4th), undefeated.  
• Cade and McSwain (6th), Top Speaker (Cade), 14th Speaker (McSwain)
• Vance and Davis-Marsh (10th), 5th Speaker (Marsh)
• Mahogany and Whitlow (15th), winning record
• Bowman and Washington (16th), winning record

DC International also got everyone’s attention this weekend. After McCauley the younger trailing after his older sister and representing DCI solo for several months, the rest of the team debuted. 

• Hyman-Jimenez/Worsley: 1st Place, 9th and 2nd Speaker, respectively.
• Larsen Brown / Swift Morgan: 8th Place, 11th Speaker (Swift-Morgan)
• McCauley (Top Speaker, Novice)

Eliot Hine, Creative Minds and Cardozo had teams taking home trophies during their debuts, while in Novice, diverse competition led by some of our largest high schools, CMIT, DuVal, Flowers, and Banneker slugged it out at the top of the pool. 

• DuVal: Gyamereah/Adiraju (1st Place, 2nd and 8th Speaker, respectively)
• Banneker: Lemus-Mercado/Guzman (4th), 11th and 12th Speaker
• Banneker: Burnette-Leverette/Obiwuna (6th)
• Banneker: Curington/Brown (7th), Brown was 10th Speaker
• Banneker: Mohammed/Belaye (8th)
• CMIT North: Germain/Madika (9th)
• Flowers: Inyamah/Gouanet (10th)
• Flowers: Akomolede/Julian (11th)

Meanwhile, 3 middle school teams were undefeated: 

• BASIS DC: Applegate/Gerety
• Stuart Hobson: Ozturk/Levett
• Hardy: Pessey/Blanc

The WUDL Debate season continues after the Thanksgiving Break with the Mamaroneck High School New York Fall Face-Off Dec. 2nd – 4th, and the WUDL Holiday Classic Dec. 10th. We hope you’ll join us for more exciting debate across the region, where we expect yet more teams to debut, including Inspired Teaching, Argyle, Ida B Wells, and many more.