ASU Speech Team Brings Home the Gold
The speech side of the ASU Forensics Team began their season at the U.S. Air Force Academy in rare fashion on Sept. 27-29 by winning Overall Sweepstakes (debate and speech ponts combined) with 5 students. This placed the speech students 1st out of 39 colleges and universities!
Speech Team:
- Sophomore James Qian was recognized with the Nate Hewitt award for top individual speaker and spoke at the awards banquet as the winner of After Dinner Speaking. Additionally, James won Communication Analysis and placed 2nd in Extemporaneous & Impromptu Speaking.
- Junior Frankie Marchi won Dramatic Interpretation as well as Poetry, and placed 2nd in Duo with Rona Berger.
- Sophomore Rona Berger placed 3rd in Informative Speaking and Prose Interpretation.
- Sophomore Paxton Attridge placed 2nd in After Dinner Speaking and 3rd in Impromptu.
- Freshman Ben Steele won Novice Impromptu and placed 2nd in Novice Extemporaneous Speaking.
The 5 students who represented the team are all in their second year of competition or less, and each student made it into more than 1 final round. 13 out of the 18 entries they brought to the tournament made it into finals, and all of the finalists placed in the top 3 of their respective rounds. In short, this is one of the most dominant showings by a young team at a season opener in years, and reflects the staggering amount of work that the students have put into their speeches over the summer and early part of the semester. Coach Nick Butler is incredibly proud of the team's performance, and invites anyone from the department that would like to become involved with coaching or judging at our upcoming tournament to contact him via email.
Debate Team:
The Sun Devils made a strong showing at the Jesuit Debates at Gonzaga University which hosted 40 teams from 13 schools across the country Sept. 28-30. The Junior tandem of Michelle Vered and Rohit Rajan (who qualified for the National Debate Tournament in the Spring of 2013) were undefeated in the preliminary rounds besting local rivals from CSU-Fullerton and UC-Berkeley along the way. Vered was recognized as the 4th overall speaker at the tournament, and Rajan was awarded as the 6th speaker overall. Vered and Rajan advanced to the quarterfinal debate where they lost on a close split decision to the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Their win in Octofinals over Gonzaga is ASU Debate's first varsity elimination round win of the season. Overall, the squad fielded five teams and finished with a combined preliminary record of 16 wins and 14 losses.
ASU Debate Team Excels at Season Opener
The ASU Sun Devil Debate Team represented themselves quite well on Sept. 13-15 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City as 3 coaches and 8 students competed against 135 other teams from over 40 colleges and universities.
In the Junior Varsity division, freshman Ethan Wheeler and sophomore Tyler Anderson advanced to the Elite Eight out of a field of 30 teams. In the Sweet Sixteen, Ethan and Tyler upended the 4th seed fromt he University of Central Oklahoma and brought home a 5th place award.
In the Varsity division, our three teams finished with a total record of .500 in a field of over 100 teams. Junior Rohit Rajan and freshman Zach Harbauer had a stand-out tournament, tallying a 5-3 record and finishing as the 34th place team. They missed the elimination round of 32 teams by one tenth of a speaker point.
ASU's Forensics Team Hosts Arizona Debate Institute
Arizona State University and the ASU Forensics Team recently hosted the Arizona Debate Institute July 29-August 11, 2013. The ADI is the largest summer debate institute for college students in the nation. ADI has earned the distinction of being the longest running, most cost efficient collegiate workshop in the nation, boasts top ranked speakers at all national tournaments, and is the only workshop with the luxury of being full contained in a newly renovated hotel.