September once again brings the start of a new school year, and with it, a new debate season. The 2012-13 season was a great success, as students who began with us as 6th graders competed in their final year of middle school debate.   This year’s going to be a bit different.   With about 3 quarters of the kids in 6th or 7th grade, our squad this year is very talented, but young.  And while it’s always fun to have a squad full of heavyweights, the work that will turn the novices into those heavyweights is equally, if differently, rewarding.  So how’s the team doing so far?  Let’s take a look:

September 

The end of September saw Kudos send a small group of competitors to Long Beach, where they participated in The Jack Howe Invitational.  We don’t have a ton of pictures, but we do have a couple.

Celena and Kaylynn broke to octafinals in varsity PF.

Celena and Kaylynn diligently prepare for battle.

But it wasn’t just our high schoolers who did well against the tough competition.  Kelly, 7th grade, and Cecily, 8th, also broke to octafinals in public forum debate.  Here we see them getting a trophy IOU.  (The tournament had accidentally ordered the wrong trophies.  They mailed the correct ones to us a week or two later.)

Kelly and Cecil trophy at Jack Howe!

Michelle and Amy also broke at Long Beach in their very first tournament.

October

Just a week later, Gabriellino High School in San Gabriel held the first middle school only invitational of the year.  It provided a great opportunity for some of our new kids to get their feet wet, while our most experienced debaters battled it out for hardware.

Bryan and Vincent compete in their first debate tournament.

First competition rounds for Phoebe and Scarlet too!

Catherine, an experienced debater, was partnered with 1st timer William.  The two battled it out and finished with a winning record.

Catherine and William do some pre-round prep.

In the end, our most experienced debaters saw to it that we wouldn’t leave empty handed.  Against a large field and some very tough competition, Kelly and Cecily were again able to bring home the goods.  Fortunately, Freeman was there to document the moment with yet another fantastic photograph:

Two Kudos students competed at the Oxford Debate Invitational on the weekend of October 19th.  Jon Lee, competing for Oxford, earned top speaker in novice LD.  Meanwhile, Edison, competing for Kudos, went 6-0 in prelims in varsity LD, earned the top seed, won top speaker, and finished 2nd after losing a split decision in a very close final round.

Next up was our first middle school league speech tournament, held at Jefferson on the evening of the 24th.  Strangely, the photography improved dramatically beginning at this tournament.

The Kudos family is in the house.

Courtney, Caty, Miranda, and Vicky

Ivan attends his first tournament!

Catherine performs her storytelling speech.

Huge fields made this an extremely difficult tournament for every competitor, and lots of very strong students walked away empty handed.  Fortunately, Kudos found triumph in expository, as both Caty and Melanie brought home the hardware:

Melanie and family are happy as she trophies in her first tournament.

Caty’s smiling, but she’s actually mad she didn’t get first. That’s called being a beast.

Finally, on the weekend of the 26th, Kudos took a small squad to The Schurr Classic, a high school invitational.  Saturday featured competition in speech events, and Caty once again brought home hardware with her expos speech:

The good news is that we hired Freeman to coach debate, not take pictures.

On Sunday, a few of our PF teams competed in debate, while several of our PF and LD students competed for their schools.  This meant that our kids ended up debating each other several times.  Celena was paired with Kelly for this one, and they made quarterfinals.

Kelly adjusts to her role as first speaker.

Sharne and Nora, competing for Arcadia, battle our brave 6th graders, Anjee and Joshua, at Schurr.

Audrey, meanwhile, made it to semifinals, but was walked over on coach’s decision, as her opponent in semis was one of her San Marino teammates.

Emerson, in his first LD tournament, draws Audrey as his competition in the second round.

Whew.  That took a while.  At any rate, it’s been a very busy first couple of months.  Our new kids are already showing so much improvement, and we’re really excited to see them continue to grow as the competition seasons continues.

Complete Winners List for September/October:

*High school student competing under the name of his/her high school.