This past weekend, Washington Urban Debate League students faced off with the best and brightest students from across the nation’s Urban Debate Leagues. 

Wait…wasn’t the Urban Debate National Championship last weekend? 

Correct. This was the championship opportunity for younger students still in Middle School. MS Nationals is the culminative opportunity for the hardest working and most dedicated students between 6th and 8th grade who aren’t eligible to qualify for the Urban Debate National Championship. This year was a spirited competition, with teams from every league advancing to elimination rounds and getting speaker awards. 

5 teams, representing four schools from the four corners of the city, represented WUDL in the competition. 

Some students were generally expected to do so, participating in my Varsity Lab this past summer (Claudia, Addie, Jack, Isabelle, and Bobby), while another was in the Transition to Varsity Lab (Marshall). Two pairs led their schools to striking distance of the WUDL Sweepstakes Cup despite still being in Middle School (Marshall / Fiona at Stuart Hobson and Claudia / Addie at DC International). All of our qualifiers have participated in some level of regional competition, some have been to almost every regional opportunity. 

Our Tournament Champions from Hardy, Jack Graber and Isabelle Pessey, have shown a clear research passion around the rise of White Nationalism and Christian Nationalism. This year, their case centered around how deepfakes contribute to the radicalization of white nationalists online. 

Not partnered before this year, they were the remaining experienced debaters at Hardy, and made the best of their last season together. Pushed to the brink in the final round, they made a Hail Mary argument centered around debate theory, and actually pulled it off, rare for a younger debater. 

Marshall made it to the final round with a different partner last year, and looked to finish the job properly this time with new partner Fiona. They gave Hardy a substantial run for for their money in the final round, winning the substantive arguments but losing the theoretical ones. Nevertheless, getting 2nd place two years in a row is pretty dang impressive! 

Semi-Finalists Bobby and Louise set a goal this year — get to elimination rounds — after Bobby and previous partner Rohan didn’t advance last year. They went wire to wire this year as one of our best middle school teams, with Louise winning speaker awards at the Dragon and Lexington despite being 4 years younger than the competition. 

Louise was the 1st 6th grader to qualify to the tournament from WUDL, and together with Zeve and Ian from Hobson, who went 2-2 as 7th graders, will form a great core of returning debaters next year to show next year’s qualifiers the ropes….assuming they qualify themselves! 

Semi-Finalists Claudia and Addie were our first alternates last season, and had some incredibly highs this season, going to multiple regional competitions and even taking a round off of ToC Qualifiers Jack and Margaret (BASIS DC) at Mamo this year. We’ve known that they have a very bright future; Claudia was our Middle School Debater of the Year last season. Beyond competitive success, their leadership skills were on full display this year, as a number of DCI teams grew and thrived this year. We suspect that they will be well represented next season at this competition. 

Many thanks to WUDL Alumni Emmanuel Makinde (who just became the first league alumni to advance to elimination rounds at the NDT), previous winners of this tournament Evelyn Webster (2024), Margaret Applegate (2023), and Sitara Mazumdar (2022) and senior Parker McCauley (Quarterfinalist 2021) for helping out as judges and coaches. 

Shout out to Ayanna Free and the team at Yu Ying that gave us a place to gather and compete. It is an incredibly bright and pleasant school, and to Mandie Worsley, Veronica Jimenez and the rest of our fabulous parent support team. 

Shout outs to Roger Nix of the Boston Debate League, who co-tabs this event with us and to Morgan Lawrence of the Tulsa Debate League for joining us in tournament leadership this year. Also, to the folks from DKC, the MDUDL, the BDL, and the TDL, who gave us competitive and sportsmanly rounds.