Coming off of two successful years in the art of competitive debate, the Jesuit Debate Team is ready for another great year. Through September the team had a rocky start with no teams garnering points toward the state tournament.
To qualify for the state tournament, a team of two must accumulate 12 or more points during the season to reach the first round. A pair may receive 2 points for reaching the quarterfinals, 4 points for the semi finals, 6 points for the finals, and 8 points for winning a tournament. The topic for this year: Resolved–That the federal government should substantially increase its transportation infrastructure investment in the United States.
With twenty three schools competing in the two day event at the Southlake Carroll Invitational, the Jesuit debate team had a good start for October. Three teams made it to the elimination rounds, all tying for fifth place honors.
With the team gaining six total points and the individual teams earning two, the teams did well at Southlake, solidly on their way to earning the twelve points needed to qualify for state. The debate teams were made up of Grant VanKirk ’13 and Adam Wiechman ’15; James Abbott ’14 and Jackson Pyke ’14; and Brice Tsao ’14 and Chandler Dawson ’15.
All three teams finished with 3-1 preliminary round records. Dr. Tracy McFarland, one of the head debate coaches, commented by saying, “all of the debaters are continuing to move their debating forward. Tsao and Dawson, both second year debaters, did great against a field of mostly juniors and seniors in their 3rd and 4th year of debate.” Van Kirk and Weichman defeated a team from Lovejoy and two teams from Highland Park before losing to Grapevine in the quarterfinals.
Dr. McFarland was pleased with Wiechman, saying, “Adam, in his second year and debating with 3rd year senior Grant, cleared to elimination rounds—holding his own against 3rd and 4th year debaters.” Abbott and Pyke defeated teams from Hebron, Coppell, and Highland Park before losing to another Coppell team in the quarterfinals. Dawson and Tsao defeated teams from Sachse, Lovejoy, and Coppell before losing to Highland Park in the quarterfinals. All three teams hope to capitalize on the points earned at Southlake.
At the St. Mark’s Tournament the team performed well, though no teams cleared the preliminaries for any points. With 84 teams from all over the country, the St. Mark’s Tournament was huge. Justin Kang ’13 and Ryan Tan ’13 were one of the teams that attended, but unfortunately they lost early in a couple of tough debates, and as a result could not clear the preliminaries. Jackson Pyke and Jeff Melsheimer ’14 also lost in their “break round” and this prevented them from also clearing the preliminaries.
Dr. McFarland noted that, “[The debate team] prepared for that tournament and all of the debaters are continuing to move forward both with their technical debate skills and the sophistication of their arguments for this debate topic.” She also said to remember that the debate season is “definitely a marathon not a sprint.” The season continues with tournaments nearly every weekend between now and April.
The debate team looks very strong this year, and hopes to win a sixth state title.
