This might sound familiar from our last post: 

A week after our second road trip in 32 months, we hosted the WUDL Winter Classic, the first regular season tournament of 2023 and kicked off our National Qualifying process. Despite several schools taking a break after a long weekend in Boston, this was still the largest tournament we’ve hosted in many years! 

To qualify for Nationals, WUDL Coaches voted, back in the day, against a “winner take all” tournament. Thus, we add up the cumulative record of the Jan and Feb tournaments in both Middle School and High School qualifying divisions to determine the winners. 

At the High School level, we can send 2 teams (or 3 if we have the National Urban Debater of the Year). At the Middle School level, we will qualify 6 teams, 4 via competition and 2 via an at-large application system that includes more holistic features. 

In High School: 

Capital City’s Birnstad / Villaflor went undefeated, a weekend after setting or tying league competitive records at regionals. 

BASIS DC’s Mazumdar / Lockwood are currently in 2nd place, but their hold on that spot is incredibly tenuous, as School Without Wall’s Balk/Mallia and Dinkins/Neuroth and Frederick Douglas’s Adejumo/Evans are all also 3-1. Phelps’s Howard / Cox and Flower’s Binigbolo / Banjo are also still very much in the hunt. 

In Middle School: 

We have five teams tied with 3-1 records after the first half of the qualifier: 

1. Stuart Hobson’s Thorpe/Neuroth (who have been strong performers all year)

2. Stuart Hobson’s Sullivan / Webster (Sullivan made a strong jump up to the qualifiers after Webster’s normal partner bowed out at the last minute) 

3. Kettering’s Millhouse / Effah (who jumped up from Novice with no JV experience this year, and who were not 100% sure they wanted to throw their hat in the ring and try the morning of the tournament). 

4. Oyster Adam’s Berndt / Goldblatt (Goldblatt would become our first 3x qualifier, this time with a new partner after his previous partner graduated)

5. Hardy’s Tesfaye / Troutman-Ritchey (Troutman-Ritchey was our top alternate last year, and has done a great job helping his new partner get up to speed)

BASIS DC’s Gerety/Applegate and Boehm/Greaves, Stuart Hobson’s Morrissey/Winston, Hardy’s Velez/Blanc, and Friendship Woodridge’s Adames / Peters-Jackson are right behind them. 

Outside of our national qualifiers, we had lots of exciting debates. 

In JV, the real story in JV was College Park Academy, who recently moved several of their high school teams up to JV, took home a bunch of trophies. Onyilofor, debating alone, was the top overall speaker, and 5th overall, while McFarlane/Agbor was 7th. DuVal’s Delehant/Gam broke a new affirmative about gender discrimination in artificial intelligence, and also did well, finishing 3rd overall.

In JV, DC International’s Captain Sousa finally was able to debate this year, and unsurprisingly, finished as the 2nd overall place and the 2nd speaker, while in Novice, Worsley / Hyman-Jimenez went undefeated despite moving up to a new division. They’re definitely a team to fast track and see how they can do in JV before the year is out. 

In Novice, Banneker’s Belaye/Mohammed won the division, but Alice Deal took home the most trophies, including 2nd, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, and 14th, in addition to 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th speakers. 

Several partnerships of high school teams are now ready for JV took home trophies, Gouanet / Inyamah of Charles Flowers, Nkamga/Mackall of Douglas, and Olorunfemi/Abiol of DuVal. A hybrid team of BASIS DC and Cardozo rounded out the top 10 in 7th. Girls Global also did well, led by Hutchins/Montgomery in 12th. 

In Rookie, Capital City’s Chamberlin-King and Daniels won the division, and are definitely ready to move up, as are Hobson’s Thorpe / Smith, Eliot Hine’s Thorn / Sullivan and Wozniak / Pratt, and Kettering’s Adepetu/Bunbury and Onwibuche / Adepetu. A big shout out to CMIT South’s  Omotosho/Raji and Basondole/Raji for winning some of their school’s first awards. 

Huge shout out to the folks at Dunbar for being great hosts. We’ll see you February 11th for the 2nd half of the National Qualifying process (and a normal novice tournament for everyone else) at Phelps High School.