Students gathered outside of BASIS DC around lunchtime on Friday, Jan 13th, and eventually got on a bus. They weren’t there to go to school though — the WUDL Travel Team was hitting the road once again, this time heading up to Lexington (Massachusetts) for one of the regions largest and most prestigious tournaments. 

This trip, we made a few stops along the way, pickup up Capital City Alum Clarke Dickens at the University of Pennsylvania and dropping Clarke and School Without Walls / Oyster Adams Alum Zara Escobar off at Yale University to start her semester. Combined with Alums Eric Clarke (Columbia Heights, now at Georgetown), Noah Hinant (Largo, out of college), and Paris Smalley (Flowers, Duke University), the current debaters were in good hands. 

This was our second travel tournament in 30 plus months of pandemic, and Lexington were great hosts. The food was plentiful and tasty, the judge lounge well supplied, and the hosts flexible for all of the unique wrinkles that come with traveling with 50 people representing a dozen schools. Thanks Kaz + team! 

This weekend, we hit or tied a few competitive milestones: 

1. Capital City’s Liv and Joey became the first team we can remember to have an undefeated day (4-0) in a Varsity Division

2. They also advanced to the TOC bid round (and unfortunately lost), tying DuVal’s Sayoto/Ntangu for the 2nd time in league history this has occurred. 

3. Liv was also the tournament’s 4th overall speaker, also best in league history. 

4. BASIS DC’s Saron and Victoria, debating in Novice, also brought home some serious hardware, advancing to the Semi-Final round of the Novice Division in their first out of WUDL competition despite being the lowest seed to advance to elimination rounds. This ties a league record for best Novice performance in a regional with Dinkins/Cole from Stuart Hobson in 2020 at Bronx Science, and Tsagenah/Chacon-Reyes of EL Haynes in 2021

One of my greatest moments of pride came when our two teams advanced to elimination rounds, but instead of dejection and sleep, our eliminated teams jumped at the chance to help their comrades, even if they were from different schools, in different divisions, and didn’t really know one another before the tournament. Our novices had more evidence updates and block writing than they knew what to do with for their deep elims, and even had pizza brought to them (gotta stay fueled for these long days!) 

While the rest of our squad didn’t advance or receive trophies, the growth and learning was extensive. We had a particularly young squad this weekend from BASIS DC, Banneker, Capitol City, Creative Minds, EL Haynes, Hardy, Oyster Adams, Phelps, and School Without Walls. Many debated new arguments for the first time, learned technical skills about organizing their thoughts and incorporating research more effectively into their speeches. 

One of the best parts of debate is the lasting friendships forged through a shared bond, and we were fortunate to meet up with several old friends of WUDL. Zoheb Nensey was WUDL’s first Tab Director for several years, (and whom I met in my first debate ever…gulp…16 years ago) while Anne Peckham co-founded and coached the Oyster Adams debate team for several years. Both now live in the Boston area and came out to support the WUDL squad. 

Big shout out to our adults who made the trip a big success: McAlister Clabaugh, Messai Yigletu, Zara Escobar, Clarke Dickens, Eric Clarke, Paris Smalley, Noah Hinant, and to those we met there — Gabe Ritter and Anne Peckham! 

WUDL Travel Team hits the road again in early Feb. to go to the Pennsbury Falcon Invitational, our next travel tournament!