Abilene High Debate

We’re headed back to Austin in May!

Yesterday, four of Eagle Debate’s finest competed at the UIL 5A Region 1 Speech contest. Our team competed across three events: Informative Extemp, Persuasive Extemp, as well as Prose Interpretation. Shout out to Maggie and Sloan, our very first Debate I Regional Qualifiers. As a team we also placed 3rd overall.

Specific results are as follows:

Informative Extemp
-Sr. Syler Richardson - 2nd 🥈 State Qualifier

Persuasive Extemp
-Jr. Lainey Marz - 1st 🥇 State Qualifier

Prose Interpretation
-Sr. Syler Richardson - 5th 🏅 2nd State Alternate

Next stop, UIL State Speech!

Eagle Debate is going to Regionals! Yesterday was the UIL 5A District 4 Speech and LD Contest. UIL District is a tough contest because for some, it’s the end of the season.

Today we celebrate our three seniors who made their last appearance at UIL District: Paradice DeMartini, Abigail Johnson, and Syler Richardson (current Eagle Debate VP). Syler will be continuing on to Regionals in April!

Results are as follows:

LD Debate
-Fr. Parren DeMartini - 4th🏅Regional Alternate
-Sr. Abigail Johnson - 6th🏅Regional Alternate

Prose
-Sr. Syler Richardson - 2nd🥈Regional Qualifier
-Jr. Lauren McGrew - 6th🏅Regional Alternate

Poetry
-Jr. Lily Lemmons - 4th🏅Regional Alternate
-Jr. Clem McFadden - 6th🏅Regional Alternate

Informative Extemp
-Sr. Syler Richardson - 🥇Regional Qualifier
-Fr. Sloan Westbrook - 3rd🥉Regional Qualifier

Persuasive
-Jr. Lainey Marz - 1st🥇Regional Qualifier
-Jr. Maggie McKinzie - 2nd🥈Regional Qualifier

We’ll see you next month in Lubbock!

This weekend is the UIL 5A CX State Tournament. CX State has been an emotional weekend for the last two years for Eagle Debate because it’s the “bridge” between the and of Policy Season and the final stretch of UIL Speech and Debate for the year.

54 teams competed in the 5A tournament this year. Our state qualifying team of Jrs. Lainey Marz and Maggie McKinzie finished in prelims. While we’re sad we didn’t break to Octos today, we’re excited to head back to Abilene to prep for UIL District next week!

We’ve got a big win to celebrate!

This past week, two of Eagle Debate’s top performers traveled to the TFA State Tournament to compete against the best of the best in Texas. They joined over 1400 students from 176 schools. Lainey made her THIRD showing in Domestic Extemp and Syler making his first in Foreign Extemp.

Lainey accomplished a new personal best, breaking to Semifinals. She’s officially in the top 18 DX Competitors in the State!

After being eliminated in FX Prelims, Syler moved to Prose, a supplemental event, on Saturday. After five hard fought rounds, Syler made it to the main stage and was awarded 4th Place in the WHOLE STATE.

If this wasn’t enough, we have UIL CX State this week and UIL District Speech and LD next week!

The end of February always brings one of our favorite tournaments: NSDA District!

This year was the inaugural meeting of the NSDA Purple Sage District, our new national qualifying tournament for the year. After a long 3-days of competition, 7 of our top competitors came together to bring home some big wins!

Eagle Debate qualified THREE students to the National Tournament in June! Lainey Marz will be returning to Nationals for the 2nd year in a row, this timed joined by Syler Richardson and Sloan Westbrook.

Specific results are as follows:

Big Questions Debate (BQ)
-Fr. Sloan Westbrook: 1st & National Qualifier 🏆

Congress-House
-Jr. Lainey Marz: 2nd & National Qualifier (deferred to USX)
-Jr. Maggie McKinzie: Finalist
-Fr. Sloan Westbrook: Finalist

Dramatic Interp (DI)
-Sr. Syler Richardson: 1st & National Qualifier 🏆

International Extemp (IX)
-Sr. Syler Richardson: Finalist

US Extemp (USX)
-Jr. Lainey Marz: 1st & National Qualifier 🏆

Yesterday Eagle Debate made the long drive across town for the 28th Annual Abilene Wylie Valentine Classic, winning the Speech Team Sweepstakes for the second year in a row! We had a great showing with placements in every single event. With 14 entries, the day was so chaotic that we missed getting pictures of our LDers Abigail Johnson and Christian Smith.

Specific results are as follows:

Lincoln Douglas Debate (LD)
-Sr. Abigail Johnson: 5th🏅

Informative Extemp (Inf)
-Fr. Sloan Westbrook: 1st🥇
-Fr. Aspen Watson: 6th🏅

Persuasive Extemp (Per)
-Jr. Lainey Marz: 1st🥇
-Sr. Syler Richardson: 2nd🥈

Prose Interpretation
-Sr. Syler Richardson: 4th🏅

Poetry Interpretation
-Jr. Lily Lemmons: 4th🏅

This weekend Eagle Debate made the trip up to Lubbock for The Hub City Swing Hosted by ❤️ All Saints HS and 💙 Frenship HS. One of the highlights of the weekend is that Abilene High won the 2026 All Saints Way Open Small Entry Championship. This award is for the team who earned the most points with 10 or fewer entries.

Big results were as follows:

❤️ All Saints
-Jr. Lainey Marz - 3rd in DX 🏆
-Fr. Cohen McKinzie - 8th in Congress
-Sr. Syler Richardsonr- 2nd in IX 🏆and 2nd in Prose 🏆

💙 Frenship
-Jr. Lainey Marz - 3rd in DX 🏆
-Sr. Syler Richardsonr- 3rd in IX 🏆

A special congratulations to Syler Richardson who earned his TFA State qualification in Foreign Extemp!

After surviving Winter Storm Fern, Eagle Debate braved the cold again for the UIL 5A District 4 CX Tournament! CX (or Policy Debate) is our winter event and Eagle Debate brought 3 teams this year. We’ve been working hard and it paid off!!

Final results for the day were as follows:
-Jrs. Maggie McKinzie & Lainey Marz:🥇1st place Champions and UIL CX State Qualifiers!
-Fr. Cohen McKinzie & Sr. Syler Richardson:🥉3rd place and 1st Alternate to UIL CX State
-Fr. Sloan Westbrook & Jr. Adrienne Lopez:🏅4th place and 2nd Alternate to UIL CX State

Abilene High also brought home the UIL District 4 5A CX Speech Team Title for the 2nd year in a row!

Big week for Eagle Debate!

On Wednesday and Thursday, Junior Lainey Marz competed at the 5A UIL Congress State Championship. This was her second time qualifying to UIL State in this event.

Wednesday, Lainey joined the top 60 competitors from 5A at the University of Texas for prelims, before advancing to STATE FINALS on Thursday at the State Capitol.

Lainey placed 13th overall in finals! She is the first student from Abilene High to break to finals in over six years.

Late post! Three weeks ago on Sat. 11/8, Eagle Debate returned to the Snyder Fall TFA Invitational with our biggest group to attend this tournament! We had a LOT of people trying out new events for the first time.

Big results were as follows:

-Sr. Syler Richardson: 1st in FX🥇, 4th in IMP🏅, and 6th in DI🏅
-Jr. Lauren McGrew: 5th in IMP🏅and 6th in Prose🏅
-Fr. Parren DeMartini: Quarterfinalist in LD

UIL Region XIV Congress was this past Wednesday, and it was our SECOND of three tournaments in the past week. This is our first big contest of the year, and our Region team has been preparing for the last month for this contest. The top three students in each classification qualify for the UIL State Congress contest in January.

Results for the day were as follows:
-Jr. Lainey Marz: 1st 🥇 and Outstanding Presiding Officer 🔨 Advancing to UIL State in January
-Sr. Syler Richardson: 4th 🏅 First Alternate to UIL State
-Jr. Anajah Woah: 6th 🏅 Third Alternate to UIL State