The league’s Travel Team coming out of the pandemic was extremely young, extremely experienced due to their experience in Middle School, and extremely talented. The average grade of WUDL Travel Team participants last year was sophomore, and the youngsters were already sniffing elimination rounds. 

This summer, WUDL alumni Zara Escobar and I knew that we had something special. We built a curriculum focused on the fundamentals and some polishing techniques:

• Speaking and persuasion to get those speaker points up
• Research and creativity, providing a competitive advantage of unpredictability, while also letting student voices shine
• Being able to process and incorporate new arguments quickly
• Broad subject matter knowledge over file specificity, so students can confront any nuance thrown at them with confidence

We didn’t in our wildest dreams think that it would happen the first tournament out, but then again, I am constantly amazed by our students. 

BASIS DC sophomores Sitara and Daniella won the league’s first TOC bid, and co-championed the competition. You can read more about their accomplishments here.

This wasn’t just a one-off piece of luck, and WUDL has grown past having 1-2 teams being exceedingly competitive at the regional level. Last weekend, we had 2 other teams in elimination rounds, 3 teams 4-2, and 11 teams 3-3 or better. We didn’t even bring 11 total teams to this tournament last year. These folks are hard working and hungry, and are just getting started.

Neuroth/Balk (Walls)

A sophomore/senior pairing that both did well last season, but had never debated together, or advanced to elimination rounds before (except at the UDNC), We expect both, with their normal partners, to continue their winning ways this season. This won’t be the last elimination round for either debater. 

Villaflor/Pessey (Hybrid)

Debating without Liv this year, Joey has put his Filipino identity front and center, writing a great case about the historic exploitation of Filipino labor in this country. We knew it was going to be a good case, but was it done? Add a last minute partner change, and apparently, that’s a winning combo! Marie-Celeste did a great job jumping in, debating a radically different style of case than anything she’d seen before with a partner she’d never worked with before. 

McCauley / Primus (Banneker)

While they didn’t advance to elimination rounds on speaker points, this winning record is something we’ve seen coming for years. They’ve won a additional round at this tournament every year, steadily climbing the ladder, and building a powerhouse Banneker team along the way. When they started as freshman, Banneker hadn’t fielded Varsity debaters in years. Now, they have more Varsity teams than any other WUDL school, and a host of folks coming up behind them. 

Cox/Howard (Phelps)

While the W/L hasn’t quite come yet, both Haven and Nyoami took home speaker awards, a highly unusual occurrence for a team that didn’t advance to elimination rounds. Haven went to Dartmouth and has been a league and team for years, so this is excellent validation of his dedication. Nyoami only started last year, and skipped Novice and JV. She’s never won a speaker award at any level, so this is a special validation of her efforts to catch up in just a single season too, even without going to camp. We’re exceedingly proud.

Speaker Awards: 

• 10th Place: Mazumdar
• 12th Place: Howard
• 18th Place: Villaflor
• 20th Place: Cox

Also breaking even: 

• Banjo/Binigbolo (Flowers)
• Wray/Gyamfi (CMIT N)
• Adejumo/Evans (Frederick Douglas)
• Applegate/Gerety (BASIS DC) (shout out to the 8th grader more than holding their own in Varsity)
• Dinkins/Troutman-Ritchey (Banneker)
• Ajani/Ajani (Roosevelt)