SCJFL Third Quarter Tournament February 27th, 2021

This Saturday wraps up a terribly busy February for our students, marking the third and final tournament of the topic that our students have been working extremely hard on. Our students kept in high spirits and competed admirably, winning many awards along the way.
Jessica and Stephanie, Isabella and Jerry, Pearl and Sophia, and William and Ryan advanced to the 5th round!
Pearl and Sophia each won speaker awards (7th and 4th place, respectively!)
William Pan won 3rd place speaker. Additionally, William and Ryan advanced to the 6th round and was the 6th place overall team!

Two Irvine teams and two Irvine speakers earned awards. Out of the 6 debaters, 5 of them earned awards.
Sophia Dai and Melody Yu earned seventh place team overall, and Melody finished as the 10th overall speaker.
Claire Liu and Elaine Cui earned 8th place team honors. Susie Gu earned a 5th place speaker award.

On the LD side of things, we had Ashley Z, Annie, and Sarah all advance to the 6th round and won 14th place, 10th place, and 9th place respectively, with Sarah also winning 3rd place overall speaker in a pool of over 80 students!

In Congress, Kudos did exceptionally well as we have our all time over achiever Fiona Zhou took home the Congress Champion and Lindsey Jiang placed 2nd, Zachary Chang 3rd, Serena Guo 4th, Anne Liu 7th, Tim Cai 8th.
We also have quite a few who got advanced in this tournament, big shout out to : Soleil de Jesus, Michelle Zhang, Serena Guo, Veronica Shao, Celina Zhou, Zachary Chang, Evelyn Lam and Zachary Zhang.
Once again, we have the best Presiding Officer Award goes to Tim Cai ~

Congratulations to all the students for their respectable performance.

PF x 76
Final Ranking
6th William Pan & Ryan Wong
7th Sophia Dai & Melody Yu
8th Claire Liu & Elaine Cui

Semi-Finals
Isabella Ma & Jerry Zhang
Seth Chang & Susie Gu
Jessica Xue & Stephanie Jing
Pearl Hsieh & Sophia Ren

Speaker Awards
3rd Place William Pan
4th Place Sophia Ren
5th Place Susie Gu
7th Place Pearl Hsieh
10th Place Melody Yu

LD x 63
Final Ranking
9th Sarah Chen
10th Annie Jiang
14 Ashley Zhang

Speaker Awards
3rd Place Sarah Chen

Congress x 48
Final Ranking
1st Fiona Zhou
2nd Lindsey Jiang
3rd Zachary Chang
4th Serena Guo
7th Anne Liu
8th Tim Cai

Semi-Finals
Soleil de Jesus
Michelle Zhang
Serena Guo
Veronica Shao
Celina Zhou
Zachary Chang
Evelyn Lam
Zachary Zhang

Presiding Officer Award
Tim Cai

Our students have embarked on a true gauntlet of tournaments throughout the month of February. Despite the challenges of remote learning and competition, a select few students took on the challenge of taking on Stanford, Harvard, and the Los Angeles SCFJL League tournament this month. This is the first update of the month.

Stanford has and always will be a grueling tournament with competitors from across the country and, keeping in tradition, remains one of the largest tournaments in the country. Despite bringing relatively few students to the competition, our students competed fierce and braved the horrors of 12 hour competition days and absent minded judges that input the wrong data. Regardless, we saw our own Sarah Chen advance to Double Octofinals in LD and Ryan Wong and William Pan advance to Double Octofinals from triple octos!

The Public Forum section had 176 entries and with over 300 students involved, William Pan was the 69th place speaker with Pearl Hsieh not too far behind at 78th!
Out of 88 students, Sarah Chen was 18th place speaker with Katherine Kligys not too far behind at 25th.

After Stanford, our students competed in the harrowing 47th Annual Harvard Forensics Tournament and I must tell you that this is the, if not one of the, largest tournaments in the country (if not the world)!
In PF, all divisions combined, there were over 600 students competing and in LD practically 300! Students from around the world were competing, from New York to Taiwan to Beijing!
Our students had to wake up before 6am in order to get ready for the tournament and they competed very well under the circumstances.
In PF, we unfortunately did not have any students advance to the break rounds and it may have been due to their only being 5 preliminary rounds instead of the normal 6 for a tournament that size. When there are 6 rounds, a typical ’4 wins and you’re pretty much in’ is the paradigm, but with only 5, the standard to break becomes much more intense.

Our PF teams took this in stride and still competed very admirably against some of the most talented students from around the world for what shaped up to be a pretty great experience!On the LD side of things, our students had to endure 7 preliminary rounds which resulted in two of our students, Annie Jiang and Sarah Chen, advancing to Triple-Octofinals, meaning they were already in the top 64 of an almost 300 student size pool.

While Annie would unfortunately not advance, Sarah would continue to win all the way to the semi-finals of the tournament, placing her in the top 4 / 300! Despite our LD students going against middle school and high school students, they still brought forth immense effort and passion for the activity.

On to Congress, Kudos sent 11 students to both of the most prestigious tournaments in the country. Not only did these students go against the toughest competition nationwide, but they did so in back to back weekends. At both tournaments at least 35 percent of the team broke to semi finals, as well as three finalists in each competition.

Three of the top 12 finalists in each tournament tied for the most amount of finalists from one program at both competitions individually.

At Stanford, Zachary Chang made semifinals for the second year in a row. Claire Wen finaled and took 12th, Lindsey Jiang took 6th and Fiona Zhao took 4th. Shout outs to 8th graders Bena Feng and Veronica Shao for being next out from making Semifinals. Special praise goes to first year speech student Emily Yang who went up against HIGH schoolers in impromptu and took top half in the tournament in terms of speaker points.

Back in congress, Lindsey, Fiona, Zach and Claire built off that progress from Stanford and were the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 7th seeds coming out of prelims at Harvard. At this tournament SEVEN of our competitors broke, which was more than any other program in the WORLD.

First year members Anne Liu, Evelyn Lam made semis as well as Serena Guo and Claire Wen. Fiona and Claire closed out as top two in their prelim chamber, with Zach and Lindsey taking 1st in their individual prelim chambers. Then, Zach, Fiona and Lindsey made finals, while all taking the top half in the final round by getting 6th, 4th, and 3rd respectively.

Kudos was the only program to have 3 of the top half of the competitors in the final round. Shoutouts once more to Bena Feng and Veronica Shao for again being next out from making semifinals. Final congratulations are deserved to Fiona for winning the leadership award in her prelim chamber, and Lindsey for winning the leadership award in her semifinal chamber.

Kudos enjoys a relaxing week off this weekend before heading to SCJFL 3 next week. We are so proud of the tremendous accomplishments they have earned this month and we are excited to see the progress they make throughout the rest of the year. Way to kick off the second semester with a bang!

Finalist in Congress Debate, with coach Mr. Feldman

The Kudos limited prep team had a tremendous improvement at the 2nd SCJFL tournament of the year.
This was the largest entry ever in the impromptu speaking category in league history, as 113 students were divided into two divisions.

The majority of the team went into the largest division in the tournament with a whopping 71 entries.

Congratulations to Amanda Lin for breaking and ranking 5th among the 13 students who made festival finals.
2nd year competition members (but 1st year LP team members) Alen Zhang and Faith Huang trekked their way into the smaller but more challenging “Open” division, based on their previous competitive experience.
Furthermore, Faith deserves praise for earning a 1st place in her final round of the day in this prestigious division
Shoutouts to first year members Emily Yang, and Felix Yu who were both one rank from breaking to finals.
Additionally, credit goes to David Tang who earned his first 1st place rank, Nolan Ou for earning his first 2nd place rank and Richard Bo for earning his first 3rd place rank in a round this season.
Special shoutouts to Chen Lu Yang for placing in the top half of the tournament at her first competition. Kudos to Kudos!

Amanda Lin Imp 5th

As our debate season continues amidst a global pandemic, our diligent students have continued to put forth exceptional work and effort despite the obvious handicap of having all of our practices and tournaments being done remotely.

This tournament was especially stressful for our students because of just how many responsibilities our students have to handle this semester while also practicing and researching for debate. Regardless, our students went in determined (and sleepy) and brought forth outstanding effort in the face of some really top notch competition.

We have to highlight just how difficult it is to debate online — people disconnect, they talk over each other, and their latency may lag and they may miss arguments. Despite this, Kudos had an amazing showing at this tournament, having both our IR and TC offices making up the vast majority of the semi-finals and the final rounds. Below, you will see the results of our TC and Irvine teams.

There were 31 total entries in LD, and we brought 6 competitors. Of those 6, 5 advanced, and then 4 of them took the top 6 places overall!

PF (Total 24 teams consisting of 47 competitors):
Semi-finalists:
Sophia Ren and Pearl Hsieh

Team Placement:
First Place – Claire Liu & Elaine Cui
3rd Place – William Pan & Ryan Wong
4th Place – Sophia Dai (Maverick)
6th Place – Susie Gu & Seth Chang

Speaker awards:
Susie Gu = 3rd
William Pan = 5th
Sophia Lin = 6th
Pearl Hsieh= 7th
Seth Chang = 8th
Sophia Dai = 9th
Elaine Cui = 10th

LD (Total 31 competitors)
Semi-finalists
Ashley Lim

Team placement
1st Place – Katherine Kligys
3rd Place – Ashley Zhang
4th Place – Sarah Chen
5th Place – Annie Jiang

Speaker Awards:
1st = Katherine Kligys
4th = Sarah Chen
10th = Annie Jiang

Congress Results (Irvine and Temple City teams combined) Coached by Evan Feldman:

Festival finals for congress (Out of Final 24 places, Total 48 competitors):
1st Place: Lindsey Jiang
4th Place: Claire Wen
5th Place: Veronica Zhao
6th Place: Zachary Chang
8th Place: Anne Liu
9th Place: Soleil de Jesus
10th Place: Kelly Lin
11th Place: Tim Cai
14th Place: Andy Hou
17th Place: Fiona Zhou
18th Place: Bena Feng
19th Place: Juliana Cui
23rd Place: Emily Sun
24th Place: Michelle Zhang

The competition was very talented, but all throughout the tournament our students never lost their determination and kept fighting to the end despite how tiring this activity can be.
Thank you all so much for your hard work and working so hard to speak up and develop their voice. We sincerely wish you all happy holidays and a happy new year. The season isn’t over, though, and as 2020 comes to a close (finally), our students will be ready for the next tournament!

Temple City Teams ~

Irvine Teams

Irvine Teams

Kudos had a decent start to the 2020-21 competitive school year.

We sent students in impromptu speaking, and they walked away with a ton of experience that they will build upon as they move forward in this activity.

Everyone on the team is in their first year on the limited preparation competition squad, and they made solid progress as speakers.

Alen Zheng and Felix Yu both were in the top half of this event that had over 50 ENTRIES.

Impromptu was the largest event at this tournament, and was twice as large as the entry in this tournament last year.

Special shout outs to Amanda Lin for getting ranked in the top four in all three of her rounds.

Every student got a top four ranking in at least one of their rounds, and showed that they belonged at the competition. Nice job, Kudos!

Warm-up before the competition

On 10/24, 1st Quarter Debate Tournament Online 2020, we had an outstanding number of students make it to the out rounds of competition this tournament.

Our Public Forum semifinalists were: Isabella Ma & Jerry Zhang and Hanbo Xu & Ethan Dong!

Public Forum finalists were: William Pan & Ryan Wong!

In Lincoln Douglas, our Semi-finalist was Katelyn Gan, and our finalists were Ashley Zhang, Sarah Chen, and Annie Jiang!

Here is a list of the awards that were given to our wonderful competitors!
Lincoln Douglas:
Katherine Klygis (10th place speaker)
Sarah Chen (7th place speaker)
Katelyn Gan (6th place speaker)
Ashley Zhang (4th place speaker)
Annie Jiang (2nd place speaker, 4th place overall)

Public Forum:
Isabella Ma (7th place speaker)
William Pan (2nd place speaker)

The competition was tough, the tournament was an endurance test, and the online platform was challenging in and of itself, but our students never lost determination to do their best and continue to improve.
Kudos is coming out strong for our first tournament, and we will seek to continue this momentum on to the next tournament!

Congress team , All 14 of the 14 students in congress finals, including Congress and P.O champions Bena Feng and Tim Cai were from Kudos.
This is the 2nd year in a row where Bena has won the first tournament of the year.
Tim won his third gavel, and has won the presiding officer competition more than anyone in our league over the past two years.

Evelyn Lam, Zachary Zhang, Juliana Cui, Kelly Liu, and Veronica Shao all made finals in their first tournament as members of the competition team.
In addition, first year students Michelle Zhang, Larry Zhou, and Ayden Fang were the next three students out from making it to the final round.
Third year member Larry Shi got perfect speaker points in his first and second round, which was more than any other competitors in the tournament.

Special shoutouts to Soleil Dejesus who had her best tournament and almost broke to the final round. Finally, congratulations to 8th graders Fiona Zhou, Claire Wen, Zachary Chang and Lindsey Jiang for being the top three seeds coming out of the preliminary rounds. Go Kudos!

Kudos Irvine finished as champions at the first ever online SCJFL tournament on April 11th, 2020. Kudos Irvine also had the top overall speaker. The students showed remarkable determination to successfully complete a 13 hour online tournament and finish as champions.
Ava Ye and Joy Sun earned 1st place team honors. Sarah Chen and Annie Jiang earned 3rd place. Additionally, Ava Ye earned the top overall speaker award. Kudos Irvine had 4 out of the top 10 overall speakers.

Teams from Temple City, Stephanie Jing and Jessica Xue earned 6th place and Joleen Wong, Susie Gu took home 8th place.

Kudos congress students had a great performance at the final SCJFL regular season debate tournament of the year.
Out of the four SCJFL Congress tournaments this year, Kudos has had a staggering 54 of the 62 breaks including 46 of the possible 53 finalists, all four top Presiding Officers, and three of four championships.

Tim Cai won best presiding officer for the second time, and he is the only student in the league to accomplish this feat.
2nd year competition team member, Kalen Han, took top three at every league tournament he attended, only losing the championship to the reigning national champion.

He, Kerry Zhang, Lindsey Jiang, broke at every tournament they attended this year.

Kalen (3x), Lindsey, Fiona Zhou(3x), and Kelly Lin finish the regular season as the only students in our league to have placed in the top 6 at multiple league tournaments this year.

Special shoutouts to Kelly (6th grader) and Lindsey(4x finalist) who broke at all four league tournaments.
Zachary Chang, Michael Cheng, Alen Zhang, Felix Peng made elimination rounds for the first time this season, which means they have qualified to attend SCJFL So-Cal Championships.

33 Students in our entire league have qualified to the upcoming championship tournament (May 1st-3rd), and 25 of them are from Kudos (they are all listed below).
SO-CAL CHAMPS QUALIFIERS: Andrew Huang, Callie Chen, Serena Guo, Michael Cheng, Carissa Yu, Fiona Zhou, Ashley Zhang, Uma Shukla, Lindsey Jiang, David Du, Kelly Lin, Tim Cai, Kalen Han, Claire Wen, Jolene Chou, Carolyn Chan, Kerry Zhang, Alen Zhang, Felix Peng, Larry Shi, Bena Feng, Abigail Shih, Zachary Chang, Anne Chen

April 10th, 2020 Kudos students participated in their first virtual tournament as a part of the SCJFL 4 th Quarter Speech Tournament.

While the tournament was originally to be hosted by Wilshire Academy, the tournament was moved online to meet social distancing guidelines.

Facing the challenges of competing virtually, 5 students were awarded trophies as Kudos placed in SPAR, Dramatic Interpretation, and Poetry.

On March 38, Saturday Kudos’ students attended the first On-Line Elementary speech and debate tournament.

Parents were told during the school year Kudos would take their children to compete to enhance the overall learning experience, but this year due to COVID-19, it is impossible to host a physical tournament like we used to have, so the organization decided to still host the tournament, just virtually!

We had 45 students in total signed up for 8 events, out of those 8 events, we had 6 events placed into final rounds, got 4 champions in Novic Spar, Open Spar , OO/Persuasive and Poetry, just outstanding performance overall !!

Many student went into final round despite the internet issues in the beginning but everyone adapted quickly and with parents help, students enjoyed the virtual tournament tremendously, together!

Here are some photos and final ranking: