Westwood Debate

Westwood Debate had an extremely successful weekend, with Warriors reaching elimination rounds and debaters coming one step closer to qualifying for the Tournament of Champions (the most prestigious tournament in high school debate)!

Starting at Texas, at the Lindale TFA (Texas Forensics Association) tournament. Our Westwood freshman absolutely wiped the competition in novice Congressional debate and novice extemporaneous speaking. In novice extemporaneous speaking, extempers placed second (Rutu Ruparel 25’), third (Avery Parks 25’), sixth (Vince Pham 25’), and three reached semifinals (Rohan Satija 25’, Prithvi Krishnan 25’, Eric Zhu 24’)! In novice Congressional debate, debaters placed second (Vince Pham 25’), fourth (Eric Zhu 24’), fifth (Shaurya Pathania 25’), tenth (Aarohi Bhattacharya 25’), eleventh (Tracy Li 25’), and twelfth (Jake Pryor 25’)! In our varsity divisions Akhila Rajesh (23’) reached Semifinals in Domestic extemporaneous speaking, Sneha Bhale (22’) reached Quarterfinals in Congressional debate, and Varshini Loganathan (24’) reached semifinals in Lincoln Douglas debate.

On the west coast in Long Beach, California, our debaters had tremendous success at the Jack Howe Invitational! With our SOPHOMORE debaters reaching quarterfinals (Silas Ou & Ishan Sharma 24') and obtaining a bid to the Tournament of Champions! We also have our Public Forum debaters who reached
At the Yale Invitational, one of the most competitive extemporaneous speaking tournaments, Srivaishnavi Marreddy (22’) reached octafinals in extemporaneous speaking!

Finally, at one of the most competitive high school tournaments, at the Greenhill Fall Classic, debaters reached elimination rounds in both Lincoln Douglas (Pranav Medikonduru 22’) and Cross Examination (Ruhee Nemawarkar & Katherine Yan 22’).

Westwood Debate had a successful season-opening this weekend! In addition to fourteen Warriors reaching elimination rounds at the most prestigious national season openers, Westwood won overall sweepstakes at the local Round Rock Invitational.

At the National Debate Season Opener at the University of Kentucky, several debaters found success among the best of the best in the country. Westwood had a semifinalist in Extemporaneous Speaking (Arjun Raman), four octo-finalists in Policy Debate (Neil Choudary ‘23, Warren Huang ‘23, Ruhee Nemawarkar ‘22, Katherine Yan ‘22), and two Lincoln-Douglas debaters (AJ Darwin ‘22, Wesley Yeung ‘23) in elimination rounds!

Closer to home in Grapevine, Texas, we had five Lincoln-Douglas debaters (Anoop Rachakonda ‘22, Pranav Medikonduru ‘22, Brian Jeon ‘23, Aaditya Ganesan ‘23, Varshini Loganathan ‘24) reaching elimination rounds up to octofinals, and two Public Forum debaters (Akhil Bhale ‘22, Amogh Mahambare ‘22) reaching double octofinals!

At the Round Rock tournament, Westwood had four Novice Extemporaneous finalists, and several finalists in United States Extemp (Sneha Bhale ‘22, Katie Falcon ‘22), a finalist in Lincoln-Douglas (Anya Yaksh ‘23), two quarter finalists in Public Forum Debate (Anya Gupta ‘23, Hanyu Wei ‘23), and eight of the top ten winners in Congressional Debate hailed from Westwood!

Join us at Blaze Pizza later this month!

http://groupraise.com/events/192692

Today begins the world's largest academic competition, where Westwood High School debaters will compete at the National Speech & Debate Association's National Championship!

We have a school-record worth of competitors and we'll keep you updated here (and more rapidly on Twitter: ) of all results of our incredible students who've qualified out of Central Texas to get here.

S'co Wood!

Good luck to all of our Westwood High School debaters competing at the most prestigious national championship in high school debate, Tournament of Champions!

To qualify is an impressive feat, go out there and take what's yours!

Westwood High School Debate is competing at the National Debate Coaches Association National Championship!

Westwood CX is getting work in!

Varsity:
Choudhary & Huang 3-1

Novice:
Gundam & Sharma 3-1
Ou & Prasanna 3-1
Tripathi & Thiagarajan 3-1
Naveen & Polavaram 2-2

Our Lincoln-Douglas debaters are also going strong!

Varsity:
Pranav Medikonduru 4-1

Novice:
Esha Venkat 4-0 FireFireFireFire
Varshini Loganathan 3-1
David Li 2-2

Westwood High School Debate is #6 in the National Speech & Debate Association's nation-wide ranking!

Hope to see you post-testing after school on Tuesday, April 13th from 4-8pm at our local Chipotle!

Mention Westwood Debate for a portion of your purchase to be donated to our programme!

Westwood High School are the Western Novice National Champions in not one - but TWO events!

In Novice Lincoln-Douglas debate, freshmen David Li and Esha Venkat BOTH win the Championship with perfect undefeated records! They are the co-champions of the tournament!

In Novice Cross-Examination debate, we had an incredible run with FIVE freshmen teams advancing to elimination rounds!

The team of Ayush Tripathi & Vaishnuv Thiagarajan were undefeated and win the entire tournament as the overall #1 seed - they are your Western National Champions! Ayush was also the tournament's Top Speaker and Vaishnuv took 3rd as well!

The team of Shriya Kota & Anannya Sathaye were the #2 seed and finished in the Elite Eight.
The team of Silas Ou & Madhavan Prasanna earned the #3 seed and placed in the Final Four! Madhavan was the tournament's 2nd Speaker and Silas took 4th!
Sahithi Martha & Dominic Schwarzenbach were the #6 seed and bowed out from the tournament in the Elite Eight - allowing their teammates to walk over them.
Ishan Sharma & Sai Koduri were the #13 overall seed and placed in the Sweet Sixteen.

I'm incredibly proud of these young debaters who've overcome a lot of hurdles to become successful in a world of virtual learning and debate. The future is bright!

Westwood High School had an impressive presence at the Texas Forensic Association State Championship!

Below are our results from the past weekend:

In Cross-Examination debate, the junior team of Ruhee Newarkar and Katherine Yan cleared to elimination rounds with a 5-1 record as the #6 seed and placed in the Sweet Sixteen. Ruhee was also the state's #9 overall Speaker!

In Lincoln-Douglas debate, we were able to clear five debaters to elimination rounds. Triple Octofinalists for us were juniors Prithiv Premkumar and Anoop Rachakonda. Double Octofinalists were sophomores Brian Jeon and Shreya Tiwari. Junior Pranav Medikonduru advanced with a 5-1 record and finished as an Octofinalist in the Sweet Sixteen.

In Public Forum, the junior team of Akhil Bhale and Amogh Mahambre had a perfect 6-0 record in preliminary rounds and were the #1 overall seed and placed in the Sweet Sixteen.

In International Extemporaneous speaking, our lone entry, junior Arjun Raman, decided to be a shining spotlight of our weekend placing as a Semifinalist.

In United States Extemporaneous Speaking, sophomore Olivia Yang continued her impressive season finishing as a Quarterfinalist.

Tremendously impressed with our competitors who placed at the nation's largest state championship where it's already an incredible achievement to qualify.

S'co Wood!

At the Western Novice National Championships hosted by Bay Area Urban Debate League (BAUDL), half of Semifinals in both Lincoln-Douglas debate and Cross-Examination debate hail from Westwood High School