ASU Forensics Team Competes Cross-Country for Awards
The ASU Forensics Team competed cross-country November 11-13 in the final tournaments of the semester to bring home awards. The majority of the speech and debate students competed at California State University, Northridge with a smaller group of debaters competing at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC.
Students competing at Northridge received the following awards: Rohit Rajan and Peter Chotras, Barrett freshmen: 1st Place , Junior Varsity division (perfect 8-0 record) Rohit Rajan: 3rd Place, Speaker Award Peter Chotras: 5th Place, Speaker Award Frankie Marchi, freshman: 3rd Place, Prose Interpretation; 5th Place, Poetry Interpretation; Finalist, Poentry Interpretation Kayla Watson, freshman: 2nd Place, Extemporaneous Speaking Josh Taylor, senior, and Stuart Ness, freshman: Finalist, Prose Interpretation; Finalist, Informative Speaking Students competing at Wake Forest received the following awards: Michelle Vered, freshman, and Ryan Marcus, sophomore: finished 94 out of 100, Policy Debate teams Nikole Brasch, junior, and Kurtis Nielsen, senior: finished 109, Policy Debate teams
ASU Forensics Team Continues Excellence at Tournaments
On October 29-31, 2011, the ASU Forensics Team hosted the Sun Devil Invitational. The Sun Devil Invitational is a college debate tournament that featured 17 teams from 8 schools this year. Three teams from ASU received awards. Freshman Michelle Vered and sophomore Ryan Marcus finished as semifinalists, tied for third. Sophomore Pierce Young and freshman Peter Chotras were quarterfinalists and senior Kurtis Nielsen, debating as a hybrid with a UNLV student, also finished as a semifinalist. Rounding out the awards for individual speakers, Ryan Marcus was 3rd place, Michelle Vered was 5th place, and Kurtis Nielsen was 7th place.
The ASU Forensics Team also sent 17 students to 2 different campuses to represent the Hugh Downs School and ASU in both speech and debate competitions. On October 15-16 at Concordia University in Irvina, CA, five of the speech students attended 2 tournaments, bringing home 5 awards. Junior Andie Flores place 2nd in Programmed Oral Interpretation and 6th in Prose Interpretation. Senior Josh Taylor grabbed 2nd place in Prose Interpretation. Freshman Kayla Watson and Stuart Ness took 5th in Prose Interpretation and 7th in Extemporaneous speaking, respectively.
At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 6 teams of debaters competed across three divisions of competition. In the varsity division, sophomore Ryan Marcus and freshman Michelle Vered finished with a 4-3 record, earning a trip to the elimination rounds. Unfortunately, they lost on a 2-1 decision to a team from Trinity, finishing tied for 17th in a field of 59 teams. In the novice division, freshman Rohit Rajan was the first overall speaker, defeating the 2nd place speaker by a wide margin. Rajan and partner, Josh Meyer, a junior, were 7-0 in the preliminary debates and did not lose a debate until the semi-finals. They finished tied for 3rd place. Three more ASU teams were a 3-3 after 6 debates and would have placed if they had won the 7th debate.
ASU Forensics Team Debaters Place 2nd at Idaho State
On September 23-25 two of ASU’s Forensics Team debaters traveled to Idaho State University to compete against 19 other teams from 5 other colleges and universities in the Mountain States. This year's topic asks students to defend or negate the following resolution: That the United States Federal Government should substantially increase its democracy assistance to one or more of the following: Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.
Seniors Jeffrey Dunne and Jason Sanchez won 3 of their first 4 debates before finishing with a 3-3 record. The team of Michelle Vered (freshman) and Ryan Marcus (sophomore at U of A) compiled a 5-1 record in the preliminary rounds and won their Quarterfinal and Semifinal debate against teams from Eastern Washington University and the University of Nevada Las Vegas, respectively. In the Finals, they lost to Weber State University on a 2-1 decision, finishing 2nd in the tournament. Michelle was also named the 6th place speaker, while Ryan received the 2nd place speaker award.
The Hugh Downs School now has a lovely trophy shaped like the state of Idaho to grace the Forensic Team’s display cabinet of Staffer Hall. A great tournament for the Sun Devils!
ASU Forensics Team Places 12th at National Tournament
The ASU Forensics Team placed 12th at the American Forensics Association's National Individual Events Tournament held April 1-3, 2011 at the University of Nebraska-Kearney.
Twelve of the students on the team qualified 46 performances for this year's AFA-NIET. Seniors Eddie Gamboa and Jonathan McGinn, along with Junior Alexandria Tippings led the way with outstanding events. Alexandria finished 3rd in the nation in Informative Speaking. Jonathan was a semi-finalist in Impromptu Speaking and Eddie was a quarter-finalist in Communication Analysis. Both Eddie and Jonathan were also quarter-finalists in Extemporaneous Speaking. Eddie was last year's national champion in Prose Interpretation.
ASU students performed over 150 times at the event, ranging from limited preparation events such as Impromptu Speaking to public address events such as Persuasive Speaking, to interpretive events such as Dramatic Interpretation. ASU also beat long-standing California rival, CSU Long Beach, placing 5 spots higher than CSULB's team.
Congratulations to this year's speech students who contributed to an amazing finish: Seniors - Eddie Gamboa, Jonathan McGinn, Eric Dern, Andy Kersh, Zach Mills Juniors - Alexandria Tippings, Martha Galewski Sophomores - Dwayne Holmes, Andie Flores Freshman - Caitlin Cruz, Andrew Berens
A special thank you to Nicholas Butler and Julia Kolsrud for volunteering their time and talents coaching the students, traveling to tournaments, and providing judging.