**We’ll have separate posts to celebrate the excellent work of folks at the Adam J. Rubinson Invitational at Deloitte and the Adam J Rubinson Memorial Award**

This is the first time we’ve had a single school sweep the qualifying process for nationals — and it happened in both middle and high school! 

We’re very happy to have these two teams join BASIS DC’s Mazumdar / Choi as our representatives to culminative, End of Year Tournaments at the high school level

Representing the WUDL at the Urban Debate National Championship: 

Akesh Mallia and Jener Balk (School Without Walls)

These seniors are in their eighth(!) year of debate, and have debated together all throughout high school. They often debated together in Middle School as well, all the way back to 5th grade when both attended Capital City PCS. They’ve been on the WUDL Travel Team since 8th grade, and have been in a bunch of elimination rounds, also starting in 8th grade. 

As juniors, these boys represented WUDL at the UDNC in Dallas, finishing as Octo-Finalists. They’ve come back to finish the job and see if they can get deeper into the competition. 

William Neuroth and Zahra Dinkins (School Without Walls)

While they don’t quite have Akesh and Jener’s experience, this duo is no stranger to the big stage. William won Middle School Nationals as a 7th grader, and was in semi-finals as an 8th grader, and has advanced to elimination rounds with 3 different partners at regional tournaments this year (Jener, Marie-Celeste, and Zahra). 

Zahra was the Top Speaker at Middle School Nationals as an 8th grader and got 3rd place at the 1st Year Debater Round Robin (as the only public school students and the only middle schoolers participating). They advanced to elimination rounds at the Pennsbury Falcon Invitational.

Special shouts: 

To Coach Phillip and Coach Clarke at School Without Walls for their amazing hard work supporting these students. 

To Duke Ellington’s Tesfaye / Ondrejcak who, as freshman founding their own team, finished as the 1st alternates their first year in Varsity.