While most sports, clubs and other Jesuit organizations place activity on hold over the icy 19 day break, the dedicated debate team remained in session, competing in 2 tournaments on January 4th and 5th.
Jesuit debate made a very respectable showing at the tournaments, gaining 3 top 5 finishes as well as giving Jesuit its first state-qualifying team so far this year.
At the team’s first tournament on Friday the 4th, at Plano McMillen High School, two Jesuit teams finished the preliminary rounds with an undefeated 3-0 record and advanced to the quarterfinals.
Jeff ‘Superman’ Melsheimer ’14 and Jackson Pyke ’14 made up one of the teams that advanced to the quarterfinals, where they lost to St. Mark’s and secured a fifth place finish.
The other team of James Abbott ’14 and James Ferrara ’14, found slightly more success, winning in the quarterfinals over Greenhill and then losing to another St. Mark’s team in the semifinals, finishing an impressive third overall.
In the second tournament the next day at Plano East, only the team of Pyke and Melsheimer found its way into the quarterfinals after finishing another stunning 3-0 preliminary round, beating teams from Grapevine, Lovejoy, and the Dallas Law Magnet High School.
The team lost again in the quarterfinals, though they were able to once again finish fifth overall.
“Because of the size of each tournament it took almost a perfect preliminary round record to qualify for the quarterfinals” explained Debate Coach Dan Lingel, but despite only three quarterfinal births, several other Jesuit teams had impressive outings including Justin Kang ’13 and Ryan Tan ’13 who finished 2-1 in the preliminary round at both tournaments.
Though all Jesuit teams performed well, Melsheimer and Pyke clearly had the best two-day performance and consequently they beat the rest of the Jesuit teams to qualifying for state. In order to qualify for the state tournament in March, teams must accumulate a total of 12 points from all of their tournaments.
Teams receive two points for reaching the quarterfinals, two for advancing to the semifinals, two more for reaching the finals and an additional two for winning the tournament; so in total, a team can win 8 points by winning a tournament.
This feat of qualifying for state is especially impressive this year, as the point requirement raised to 12 (from 10 last year) “in an effort to reduce [the tournament’s] size” as Lingel put it.
“Qualifying for state was a huge relief because I was nervous that it might not happen” commented Melsheimer.
This qualification is just the first, however, and several other teams are on the verge of breaking that 12 point requirement such as the team of Abbott and Ferrara who currently have 8 points, and Grant VanKirk ’13 and Adam Wiechman ’15 who have 10 points. “I think we’re going to qualify, too” remarked Ferrara “it’s just a matter of time.”
This display of power within the debate program would be considered a fluke or a miracle at most other schools, but for Jesuit, a school with a rich history of successful debaters, this is par for the course. Jesuit debate has always been successful because of the perseverant debaters and their dedicated coaches, Mr. Dan Lingel and Dr. Tracy McFarland.
This year in particular has the potential to be one of the most victorious years for the Jesuit program as a whole and with 5 more tournaments before state, the fun is just beginning.
