Kinkaid Debate Team Update
October 2013 update
Since the last update, The Kinkaid Debate Team has competed every weekend, including at the largest tournament in Houston, another competitive local, and traveled to Chicago for one of its finest. The team achieved success at all tournaments!
To begin, last weekend, The Kinkaid policy debate team traveled to the New Trier Township High School tournament. New Trier High School only offers policy debate and it is a highly competitive tournament, attended by 38 schools representing 15 states. New Trier Township High School is a quarterfinals bid for the Tournament of Champions, sponsored by the University of Kentucky.
Kinkaid took three policy teams. Included in our successes were:
- Rikki Bleiweiss and Reece Rosenthal, juniors, placed in the top 16 (octo-finals) out of 112 teams.
- Rikki was awarded the top overall speaker award, while Reece was awarded the 10th overall speaker award. This is particularly noteworthy as there were over 220 individual speakers.
The weekend of October 5-6, the team attended a strong local sponsored by Cypress Lakes High School. Twenty-nine schools, from throughout the Houston region, attended the tournament. Kinkaid sent a small group of young debaters.
Students who received awards were:
- Emma Hanan, sophomore, and Michael Sands, junior, placed in the top 16 (octo-finals). Emma and Michael both received points towards qualifying for the TFA state tournament.
Finally, on September 27-28, Cypress Woods High School hosted the regions largest (and one of the most competitive) tournament, attended by 58 schools from throughout the region. The Kinkaid debate team did particularly well at this tournament as they had participants in the finals of two of the three debate events in the competition.
- Tyler Gamble, junior, placed 2nd out of over 100 Lincoln-Douglas debaters. Tyler is now fully qualified for the Texas Forensics Association state tournament, a feat only a handful of debaters can claim this early in the year.
- In addition, Emma Hanan and Michael Sands were in the top 16 in Lincoln-Douglas.
- Arjun Reddy, sophomore, and Sam Richey, first year, were the winners in policy debate. Sabrina Bajwa and Sita Yerramsetti were also in the semi-finals. Both teams are now very close to qualifying for TFA state.
Special thanks go out to the coaches and the parents, especially Kim Rosenthal and Brigitte Kalai, who assist in the team’s endeavors.
-- Upper School Debate Coach, Eric Emerson