Kudos Speech and Debate Team Shines Bright at Jefferson Middle School Tournament!

Under the guidance of Coach Allison and Coach Thomas, the Kudos Middle School Team recently participated in the first in-person Speech and Debate Tournament of the 2023-24 year, hosted at Jefferson Middle School in San Gabriel on November 2nd, 2023. For many of our students, it was their first time competing, but the initial nerves and jitters didn’t hold back the team as multiple students broke into finals and had an incredibly strong showing with a total participants of 122 and 12 schools registered.

Alyssa Guo made her very first competition appearance and not only gave outstanding performances in SPAR and Impromptu speaking but also managed to place 4th and 6th overall in each respective event. Alyssa might have started the day nervous, but by the end of the day, her talent and dedication were undeniable!

Kaylee Lu also had an incredibly impressive tournament outing, managing to place 8th in the SPAR standings and taking home the 2nd place trophy in Impromptu Speaking. This wasn’t Kaylee’s first tournament outing, but Coach Tom and Allison were incredibly proud to see her place higher than she ever has before.

First-time competitors Harry Zhou and Bailey Tang also placed 11th and 7th in the SPAR competition, respectively, and Kudos’ own Kenneth Yue thrilled judges in his storytelling event, taking three consecutive 1st place rankings in his preliminary rounds before snagging 5th place in the final round!

Coach Tom also wanted to highlight the incredible progress of student Olivia Chen. This was her first tournament appearance, and her level of dedication to prepare for the tournament, as well as her ability to overcome her initial nerves, was incredibly inspiring!

We couldn’t be more proud of how hard our students worked to prepare for this tournament. Here are the listed placements below:

Impromptu:
Kaylee Lu – 2nd Place
Alyssa Guo – 6th Place

Spar:
Alyssa Guo – 4th Place
Harry Zhou – 7th Place
Kaylee Lu – 8th Place
Bailey Tang – 11th Place

Storytelling:
Kenneth Yue – 5th Place