Elementary Tournament at La Salle High School, 10/22/2015

Kudos has the honor of being invited back after a successful tournament earlier in the spring semester. La Salle High School always makes it a fun afternoon for all.
The organizer wanted this to be an opportunity for all of the elementary school students to come together with their peers to showcase their public speaking and debate skills in a competition that maintains sportsmanship and respect for all competitors, both expert and novice.

And they made it a fun afternoon for all! Plenty of food and water for students between rounds, and a commemorative T-shirt to take home!

Among the 116 competitors from eight schools, following is Kudos results:

Selina Ho Poetry, First Place

Carolyn Sun SPAR , 3rd Place

Margaret Li Impromptu, 2nd Place

Sophie Tao Impromptu, 3rd Place

Henry Xu Impromptu, 4th Place

Elaine Zhang Impromptu, 6th Place

One-hundred and eleven students from eleven schools attended the first quarter SCJFL debate tournament at La Reina High school.

In policy debate, Matthew Zhang and Thomas Chon finished in first place. Eric Gao and Eric Lu finished in second place. Alex Liang and Erin Jeon finished in
fourth place and Nikhil Navare and Jacob Chon finished in fifth place.

Eric Lu was top speaker, Matthew Zhang was second speaker, and Eric Gao was third speaker.

In Lincoln-Douglas debate, Olivia Kaneko finished in second place. Alex Shaikh finished in sixth place. Timothy Guo finished in eighth place and Anjee Feng
in ninth place. Olivia was also top speaker.

In public forum debate, Nanette Zhang and Emma Chen finished in eleventh place. Aaron Zhang and Max Xiao finished in twelfth place. Angela Pang and Anabell Xu, Iris Choi and Alex Liu, and Merry Jiao and Ethan Chang also finished with 2-1 records.

Nine-hundred and nine students from eighty-eight schools and four states attended the Cal State Fullerton Speech and Debate Invitational.

Fourteen Kudos students were among them.

In the novice policy debate division, Kudos eighth graders Thomas Chon and Eric Lu reached the quarterfinals (top 8), competing against high school students.

Kudos seventh graders Matthew Zhang and Eric Gao reached the octafinal round (top 16). Eric Lu was also sixth place speaker. In middle school Lincoln-Douglas debate, Kudos eighth grader Alexander Shaikh finished in ninth place with a 3-2 record.

In middle school Impromptu speaking, Kudos eighth grader Purvaja Balaji finished in second place, and was the top seed after prelims.

Eric Lu Novice CX w/ Thomas Chon Quarters – Top 8 [6th Speaker]
Thomas Chon Novice CX w/ Eric Lu Quarters – Top 8
Eric Gao Novice CX w/ Matthew Octas – Top 16
Matthew Zhang Novice CX w/ Eric Gao Octas – Top 16
Alexander Shaikh Middle School LD 9th
Purvaja Balaji Middle School impromptu 2nd

Congrats!! NSDA Middle School National Debate Tournament – Dallas, Texas June 16th-19th, 2015

Thanks to the hard work of 14 talented debaters, Kudos took home the Middle School Debate Excellence Award at the Middle School National Tournament, an honor bestowed to only five schools in the nation. This marks the fourth consecutive year Kudos has won the award! In a pool of 126 teams in Public Forum, Ian/Vincent and Jacob/Thomas made it to the Double-Octafinal round. Moreover, Mei Johnson was the 10^th place speaker at the tournament.

Despite having a 5-1 record and ranking 15^th among all teams in preliminary rounds, Ian/Vincent did not advance after Double. Mei Johnson and Aaron Fong garnered 4-2 record in preliminary rounds, same as Jacob/Thomas, but did not clear to elimination rounds because of close cumulative speaker points. Out of 76 competitors in Lincoln Douglas, both Kelly and Shriya broke to elimination rounds. Kelly, with 4-2 record and 21^st ranking in prelim, lost in the Octafinal round. Shriya won four straight elimination rounds to advance to the final round where she lost on a close decision, and garnered the Runner-Up trophy! Meanwhile, Eric Gao and Mei Johnson lead their teammates to help Shriya and other debaters that advanced win their outrounds.

Most importantly, special mention is due to Coach Will Gingold and Advisor Andrew Rothschild. They stepped up in February of this year, taking over the helm of Kudos Tournament Team, solidified Kudos PF, LD, and Policy debaters’ capability, and created remarkable results at Santa Clara University Tournament (March, 2015), Glendale Community College State Championship and National Warm-up Tournament (April, 2015), and now the Nationals (June, 2015). After the Nationals debate topics were announced on May 1^st, 2015, the new coaches spared no efforts in steering the 14 students through research, case writing, card cutting, blocks preparation, and scrimmages, all while the students were going through their final exams and late-night studies at their respective schools.

The wonderful photos shown here will not be possible without the help from the doting eyes of Kudos parents: Aaron’s Mom Pauline, and Olivia’s father Shu. Sylvester’s aunt, Jessica, was entrusted with being the rock center of the National team, taking care of all minute details including the purse.
As a famous author Daniel Coyle reported in his best-selling book “The Talent Code”: “Talent grows in clusters because talent is best grown within networks of high-performing students, guided by skilled coaches; those coaches develop settings in which bright, motivated students are competitive but supportive, challenging each other while simultaneously helping and encouraging each other, thereby creating a relentless upward-spiral of achievement.” That’s what Kudos has been and aspire to be.

As Kudos Principal always says, “At the end of the day, it is not how many trophies you get, although we have now more than 600 awards won by our brilliant students throughout the years, but whether you can instill something that can accompany the students throughout their lives to help them become an upright and successful person; qualities such as decency, hard work, team spirit, sportsmanship, and a network of talented friends.”

2015 Nationals Results

Kudos Great Showing in both Speech and Debate

La Salle High School tournament was highly anticipated by all Kudos elementary tournament candidates. A beautiful campus, food and drink for all students, parents, and coaches! Each contestant also got a beautiful T-shirt. But most of all, the organization was impeccable! All parents and students were delighted!

Konnie Duan and Henry Xu Impromptu First place
Evan Zhang Impromptu 5th place
Selina Ho Poetry 3rd place
Jaden Zhang Spar 4th place
Oscar Wang Spar 5th place
Natalie and Colin Ng Public Forum 2nd place
Ethan Chang and Aileen Wang Public Forum 3rd place
Joie Zhang and Rachel Wang Public Forum 4th place
Audwin Chang and Jaden Ip Public Forum 6th place

2014 November 8th

Principios Invitationals Tournament 

Storytelling:​

(3rd-12th grades)

1^st: Joie Zhang

2^nd : Selina Ho

6^th : Katharine Lam

SPAR:

2^nd : Konnie Duan

3^rd : Joie Zhang

4^th : Brian Feng

5^th : Oscar Wang

6^th : Mingyu Liu

Impromptu (6th-8th grade category)

2^nd  Place Shriya Padegepati

 Congress (6th-8th grade category)

2^nd  Place Shriya Padegepati

2014 December 4th

Roosevelt Elementary School  Tournament.

Public Forum

1^st place  Natalie Wang and Colin Ng

3^rd  place  Joie Zhang  and Katharine Lam

4^th  place  Audwin Chang and Jaden Ip

5^th  place  Konnie Duan and Rachel Wang

6^th  place  Ethan Chang and Aileen Wan

(The Girls from Temple City Campus : Katharine Lam, Joie Zhang, Konnie Duan and Rachel Wang)

(Our Public Forum Warriors  : Natalie Wang and Colin Ng on stage)

Storytelling :

10^th  Moses Lee

Poetry :

5^th  Charleen Chen

Spar :

1^st  place Aaron Zhang

2^nd  place Jaden Zhang

3^rd  place Mingyu Liu

4^th  place Henry Xu

7^th  place Oscar Wang

 (Walnut Campus Family)

2014, December 6^th

La Reina SCJFL Holiday Debate

LD

3^rd     Kelly Wong

4^th    Shriya Padigepati

5^th    Justin Jiang

10^th   Courtney Chan

(The Fearless team with Glorious trophies)

Public Forum :

2nd Michael Huang and Mei Johnson

3^rd Christian Yang and Ryan Lee

5^th Nanette Zhang and Emma Chen

8^th Vincent Liu and Ian Chen

9^th Merry Jiao and Aaron Fong

10^th Thomas Chon and Sophie Lin

Speaker points (Among 64 competitive contestants)

3^rd Speaker  Mei Johnson

9^th Speaker   Eric Lu

10^th Speaker Michael Huang