2013 SCJFL Winter League Debate Tournament

The story of February begins with the first of two big league tournaments for our middle school teams.  On the 2nd, our students traveled to Ribet Academy to participate in Public Forum, Lincoln Douglas, and Policy in the SCJFL Winter League Tournament.  Our league is by all accounts the biggest and most competitive middle school debate league in the country, so we knew going in that we were in for a tough fight.  All told, 13 schools participated and 60 teams entered Public Forum, making that event particularly cutthroat.

Alex and Jax (left to right) win 1st place trophies in Public Forum.

Our kids were up for the challenge, as Kudos prevailed, taking home 1st, 4th, and 7th place in the event.

Additionally, we had 3 of the top 10 speakers in PF, including overall 1st speaker of 120 competitors!

Angela and Justin (left) round out our PF wins with a 7th place finish.

But it wasn’t just the PF’ers who did our school proud.  Kudos prevailed in policy debate as well, as our two entries took home the top two spots, earning 1st and 2nd place trophies.

Joey, Kirk, Melinda, and Natalie (left to right) make up the 1st and 2nd place teams in Policy.

We also had an excellent showing in LD, earning 3 of the 8 trophies in the event.

Three Kudos students are amongst the LD trophy winners: Audrey Lam, Jerry Wang, and Stanley Yu.

In the end, Kudos walked away with more awards than any other school, including the championship in two of the three events offered.

A complete list of our SCJFL Winter Debate Winners:

Alex Zhao and Jax Rounds – 1st Place – Public Forum Debate

Jenny Li and Jack Li – 4th Place – Public Forum Debate

Justin Chuang and Angela Chen – 7th Place – Public Forum Debate

Joseph Kiang and Kirk Wu – 1st place – Policy Debate

Natalie Wang and Melinda Wang – 2nd place – Policy Debate

Stanley Yu – 5th place – Lincoln Douglass Debate

Jerry Wang - 6th place – Lincoln Douglass Debate

Audrey Lam – 8th place – Lincoln Douglass Debate

Alex Zhao - 1st Speaker of 120 competitors in Public Forum

Jax Rounds - 4th Speaker of 120 competitors in Public Forum

Jenny Li - 8th Speaker of 120 competitors in Public Forum

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2013 SCJFL Winter League Speech Tournament

Less than a week after the league debate tournament, our hardworking warriors traveled to Glendale Community College to compete in the SCJFL Winter League Speech Tournament.  Originally scheduled to be hosted at St. Rita’s, the tournament moved to Glendale when a total of 13 schools and 169 entries registered in the 4 events offered and more room was needed.

Victor and Phoebe take advantage of one last chance to practice before the exciting final round.

Our school had just 7% of the entries but won 31% of the trophies, as 10 of our 12 competitors earned awards.

From left to right, we see Phoebe, Melinda, Jessica, Caty, Victor, Joseph, Audrey, Stanley, Jerry and Kirk celebrating their hard-earned awards. Behind, we see Mr. Strauss, who is much happier than he looks.

Prose:  Kudos fielded 3 of the 53 total entries in Prose – Phoebe Wang, Jessica Lin, and Victor Luo.  With only the top 8 places receiving trophies, we’d have to be at our best to compete in this event.

With the field cut down to the top 9 competitors, Phoebe delivers her speech in the all-important final round of Prose.

All three of our Prose entries excelled in the preliminary rounds, earning each of them a berth to Finals.  Victor earned 6th place, Jessica got 5th, and Phoebe won 1st place, Prose Champion.

Original Oratory:  OO proved to offer an even larger field than Prose.  With 60 total entries, our 5 competitors had plenty of competition.

Here we see Brandon in round, delivering his speech about highly sensitive people.

3 of our 5 entries ended battling through to Finals, with Jerry Wang, Stanley Yu, and Melinda Guo taking 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places respectively.

Stanley provides some sophisticated analysis in his speech about deindividuation.

Melinda’s hard work pays off again!

Extemp: Our four entries in Extemp weren’t about to let the Prose and OO kids claim all the glory.  Kirk Wu, Caty Szeto, Joseph Kiang, and Audrey Lam each battled through three preliminary rounds to advance to Finals, and earned 4th, 6th, 7th, and 5th place, respectively.

Caty earns a trophy in Extemp…

…and so does Kirk!

A complete list of our SCJFL Winter Debate Winners:

Phoebe Wang – Prose – 1st Place

Jessica Lin – Prose – 5th place

Victor Luo – Prose – 6th place

Jerry Wang – OO – 2nd place

Stanley Yu – OO – 3rd place

Melinda Guo – OO – 4th place

Kirk Wu – Extemp – 4th place

Audrey Lam – Extemp – 5th place

Caty Szeto – Extemp – 6th place

Joseph Kiang – Extemp – 7th place