Damien Debate Tournament 2023

The Kudos Middle School Debate Teams traveled to Damien High School this past weekend and had great success. They concluded the 2023 calendar year on a high note and have returned with numerous trophies. We sent students in Congress, Lincoln Douglas, and Public Forum, and Kudos got great experience going up against fresh competition.

Starting in Congress, Kudos was incredibly dominant. Kudos had 13 of the top 16 students in congressional debate, including 10 of the 12 finalists. Shoutouts to first year Carrie Rao and third year Sanju Chanumalla for being the winner of the preliminary chambers with first years Ella Fan and Jacquelyn Meng plus second years John Dong and Hayley Fung for rounding out the top six seeds in prelims. Those six, plus first years Kayli Tang and Justin Huo earned 10 of the 12 available first place ranks in the prelims. Kayli and Justin were also the top Presiding Officers from their prelim chambers and Justin was the top P.O. in finals. Credits are due to Jacquelyn and fellow first year Jenay Han, for making their first ever final. Jenay especially deserves praise for her tremendous growth, after getting all 9’s last tournament, to then not earning a single nine in prelims at this competition. Third year Annie Zhao, as well as John, Hayley, Sanju, Carrie, and Justin have all made the final round at both tournaments this year. Sanju deserves praise for winning the tournament! She, Annie and Carrie have all placed top six at both tournaments this year.

On the Lincoln Douglas side, returners Yuna Wu, Harry Chen, Katherine Duan, and William Lin all won top 10 speaker awards as they were all in the top six. Yuna deserves credit for her effort after some bad luck, where she had to go against two of the students that went undefeated in prelims. Special praise to William for tying for the top speaker. Harry and Yuna have received speaker awards at both tournaments this year. Speaker points are calculated after dropping the debaters’ best and worst result. But based on the raw total of speaker points, Katherine was the top speaker overall! Creds to Rebecca Ho for being top half in raw points. Despite there being nearly 30 entries, the tournament only broke the top two competitors to finals. Katherine deserves a round of applause for being the top seed and then winning the whole tournament. This was especially impressive considering she didn’t drop a ballot the entire tournament, with every judge who saw her giving her a win in her rounds.

Finally in Public Forum , congratulations to Claire Yuan and Isabella Meng for having a winning record and only losing to the tournament co-champions. Matthew Li and Kaitlyn Wu also deserve credit for earning speaker awards. Snaps for Jayden Huang, Derek Hu and Frances Xiao for being in the top half of speaker points. Derek and Jayden were also 4th and 5th respectively in raw speaker points.

YAY Kudos!

Team Photo