On November 11th, Yorba Linda High School speech and debate competed at Northwood at high school for the Orange County Speech League Northwood 2017 Tournament. It was a long day of competing. Students showed up in suits and proper apparel at 7am and left exhausted at 8pm. Overall, Yorba Linda High School performed exceedingly well, even taking third place in sweepstakes(overall score for the entire school). Fullerton took first place and Northwood took second second in sweepstakes.

For congressional debate, Aarti Tandon(12) was a finalist and Wayne Chan(11) placed third. Simran Chowdhry(12) placed first as a presiding officer for congressional debate. Ryan Lowery(11) and Blake Han(11) placed as finalists for Parliamentary Debate. Cassie Scigliano(12) placed as a finalist while Julia Massey(10) placed first in Original Advocacy.

Congress debated three legislations: the implementation of The Fairness Doctrine by the FCC, the prohibition of private campaign funding in election cycles, and the sovereign independence for the iraqi-kurdish people. For Parliamentary debate they debated upon multiple topics including the opioid crisis perpetuated in the United States.  

Ms. Dagampat(Staff) was “so proud of everyone for their individual performances but for taking third in sweepstakes as well. The freshmen and sophomores did exceedingly well, one of them even placing first. Two of them got really close to placing in Congress.” Soham Bhagat(9) and Rohita Themmanini(9) ranked 11th and 12th in Congressional debate, just a rank or two from placing as finalists. “For many, even though it was their first tournament they still did very well, especially considering this is an open tournament. For others, this is the first time in an open tournament instead of the novice division. I was overall very happy with all the ballots. Many of the newcomers show potential and diligence.”

Ryan Le(12), a congressional debater and student coach for congress, thought “the tournament was fun. Even though it took a day out of my three day weekend, I enjoyed the tournament. The new debaters all spoke very well. They were hardworking and ambitious. All of them were very good.”

The speech and debate program prepares for the upcoming tournament Cypress Invitational at Cypress Community College on the 8th of December and eventually for state qualifiers in March and potentially state championship in the end of April.

Mustangs, arguably the best.