May is not only the month of spring flowers and Mother’s Day, it also represents the end of the regular season for competitive speech and debate.  Yes, May brought the last of the league tournaments, and a chance to close out an extremely successful year with a flourish.  As usual, our young warriors didn’t disappoint!

First up, was the 4th league speech tournament, held at Jefferson Middle School.

Caty competes in round.

Kudos fielded a very small squad for this meet, as most of our kids skipped this tournament to focus on preparation for nationals.

Here we see Kelly, Caty, and Jessica enjoying themselves at awards:

Kelly, Jessica, and Caty: a happy trio!

Despite our small team, Jessica Lin made sure Kudos didn’t go home empty handed, finishing prelims as the top seed, and ultimately taking the 6th place trophy in Sight Reading despite a very large  field.

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Next up was the exciting Spring Elementary Invitational at St. Rita’s school, an opportunity for our younger competitors to get in on the action.  This was the first elementary tournament to feature Public Forum debate, and our debaters acquitted themselves admirably, winning the top three spots, and suggesting a promising long term future for our middle school tournament squad.

Here we see Anjee (left) and Joshua (right) in round one at the St. Rita’s tournament.

Anjee and Joshua finished 2nd overall in the tournament.  It took a strong performance in the first round (pictured above and below) against another very talented duo in Miranda and Alvina to get them through to the end.

Miranda and Alvina battle against Anjee and Joshua in an epic round of elementary PF.

You can watch the entire round if you like, here:

Aff constructive – Anjee

Neg constructive – Miranda

Crossfire between Anjee and Miranda

Aff rebuttal – Joshua

Neg rebuttal – Alvina

Crossfire 2 + Aff and Neg Summary + Grand Cross

Aff and Neg final focus + judges critique

Kudos students also did a fantastic job in SPAR debate, capturing 5 of 6 awards in the event, and in impromptu speaking, where we also captured 5 of 6 trophies, including the championship!

From right to left, Eric Dong, Meghan Wong, Hannah Li, Eric Gao, and William Chang celebrate!

Our complete list of winners from the St. Rita’s Invitational follows:

Public Forum Debate:

Jacob and Thomas Chon – 1st place

Anjee Feng and Joshua Zhang – 2nd place

Courtney Chan and Aileen Wan – 3rd place

Impromptu Speaking:

William Chang – 1st place

Eric Gao – 2nd place (tied)

Hannah Li – 3rd place

Meghan Wong – 4th place

Eric Dong – 5th place

SPAR Debate:

Austin Wong – 2nd place

Emma Chen – 3rd place

Vicky Tong – 4th place

Rachel Ker – 5th place

Storytelling:

Eric Miao – 1st place

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The very last tournament of the regular season took place on May 25th, when the 4th league debate tournament was held at Chandler School in Pasadena.  We went in hoping to finish the year with another dominant performance, and our middle school debaters definitely did not disappoint.

Kudos debaters emerge victorious against tough opponents in the highly competitive SCJFL.

In Policy Debate, Kudos students took home all of the trophies, including top speaker:

Raymond, Victor, Benjamin, Jonathon, and Sally all show off their hardware. Eric Choi (not pictured) also trophied in this event.

We also had good success in Public Forum Debate.  Unfortunately, this tournament ran long and the final round of PF had to be cancelled, which meant that the final order had to be determined on speaker points.  Kudos had one of three undefeated teams left, at that point, but was relegated to third on points, despite not having lost a round.

Kudos teams take four of the eight trophy winning places in PF, and 3 of 6 speaker awards.

In Lincoln Douglass debate, our competitors did even better, taking 5 of the 6 trophies, including 1st place, and also claiming the top two speaker awards in the event.

Jerry wins LD at Chandler!

The complete list of winners from Chandler follows:

Policy Debate:

Jonathon Liu and Sally Kang – 1st place

Victor Luo and Benjamin Yeh – 2nd place

Raymond Cu and Eric Choi – 3rd place

Jonathon Liu – Top Speaker

Lincoln Douglass Debate:

Jerry Wang – 1st Place

Stanley Yu – 3rd place

Alex Zhao – 4th place

Audrey Lam – 5th place

Brian Chang – 6th place

Jerry Wang – Top Speaker

Stanley Yu – Second Speaker

Public Forum Debate:

Kirk Wu and Jax Rounds – 3rd place

Joseph Kiang and Natalie Wang – 4th place

Kelly Wong and Caty Szeto – 7th place

Cicily Deng and Mei Johnson – 8th place

Lauren Song – Second Speaker of 70

Caty Szeto – Fourth Speaker of 70

Joseph Kiang – Sixth Speaker of 70