It is hard to imagine that the regular season is over – it still feels like January! Time flies when you are talking fast and having some great debates though, and we’re proud of what our students have accomplished and learned this season. 

We will cover our end of year awards in separate posts, but our AL and NL March Madness tournaments were excellent, with big shout outs to Duke Ellington and Capital City for being great partners. Both tournaments were a breeze. 

American League

Varsity:

In the end of an era, junior Anna Sullivan debated her last WUDL tournament with partner Victoria Ondrejcak. Anna is moving to NY for the Fall, but the innovative partnership, who have pushed performance debate across WUDL over the last three years, went out with a bang, taking 1st place as the home team. 

ToC qualifiers Schmidt / Applegate (BASIS DC) were 2nd, while Hoang / Thorn (Walls) finished 3rd. 

JV: 

Walls freshmen Parekh / Huxley might have young faces, but the facade collapses when they start talking – they won the JV division and are Varsity bound next season. 

Last tournament’s champs Luu / Ngume (E. Roosevelt) finished 2nd, with Goldberg / Cambridge (Inspired Teaching), Gyan / Bacote (Frederick Douglass), and MS Debater of the Year Eleanor Jacobs finished 5th. 

MS National qualifiers Kourouma / Calva switched it up, attending an AL tournament to get extra practice and test a few arguments before nationals. 

Novice: 

BASIS DC is graduating 5 incredible seniors, but the future looks bright. Novices Tam / Hegen went undefeated, putting themselves firmly in the conversation as rising stars on Coach Y’s squad. 

Hyattsville dominated the division as they moved up, winning 3rd (Miller / Clem) 4th (Ferreira / Dixon-Reddie), 6th (Gonzalez / Chesney), 7th (Nokam / Perry), 8th (Do / Forson), leaving just enough space for Strong / Hall (Frederick Douglass, 2nd), and Moreno / Solano (Duke, 5th) to win a bit too. 

Rookie:

This was the John Francis (Mirembe / Campbell, 1st, Carrington / Chan, 3rd, Disparte / Danesh, 4th, and Kurasbediani / Butler, 9th) and Capitol Hill Montessori (McCoy / Ajamu, 2nd, Cadley-Hucks / Davis, 5th, Johnson / Nkoue, 6th, and Merriott / Flippin, 8th)Show as the two schools took home 8/10 of the top awards (Hyattsville snuck in there and won two as well). 

National League: 

Varsity

After it looked like it would turn out like WUDL Director David’s platonic ideal of a division (everyone is 2-2, is perfectly challenged, and has stuff to work on still), the Thorpe siblings (Banneker) pulled ahead to win the division, defeating Griffith / Pagan (DCI), Harrison / Collier (DuVal), and Yeakey / Allen (Banneker) along the way. 

JV: 

Eliot Hine may have been missing their top team at MS Nationals, but I’m not sure anyone noticed as Bartell / Day went undefeated, winning the JV Division. They faced some diverse, great competition with Francis Hammond in 2nd (Sola / Chowdhury) and 4th (Rahman / Eltoum), Bladensburg in 3rd(Barahona-Moran / Gonzalez-Carino), and Black / Binyam (Banneker) in 5th. 

Shout out to Robyn Grier (KIPP DC Shaw) as top speaker (again). 

Novice:

Dr. Price’s Tigers from DuVal ended the season on a high note, as Alale / Enih won the Novice Division, and Ugwuota / Smith finished 10th. Some of our top middle school programs were right behind them, as Frazier (Kettering), Keith / Preiur (Eliot Hine), and Pierson / Glasier (Stuart Hobson) got the next 3 awards. Bladensburg’s Blue / Patterson rounded out the top 5. 

Shout out to Okwu from Montgomery Village as top Speaker! 

Also big shout out to Lohse / Munipalla (Alexandria) and Mitchell – Barber / Field (IDEA) for winning trophies in their school’s debut. We have very high hopes for both programs in the new year. 

Rookie:

Coach Plaisted thankfully brought a duffel bag to carry all these trophies, as Morton / Borbely (1st), DeRosa / Glenn (2nd), Dean / Phillips (3rd), and Williams / Dickerson (6th) were all from Stuart Hobson. They let a few other folks win awards though, like Mandefro / Kassim (MacFarland) and Sultani / Mohammed (Francis Hammond) in 4th and 5th, respectively. 

Shout out to Senff of Sojourner Truth as Top Speaker, and, with partner Jenkins, 8th overall.