On November 12th, YLHS speech and debate team competed at Northwood high school for the Orange County Speech League(OCSL) Fall Tournament. This tournament was an open tournament, meaning students of all levels competed with each other. It was a fun experience, and the YLHS team acquired many accolades. Caitlyn Truong (9), a congressional speaker, said that the tournament was

“a learning experience, and even though it wasn’t easy, it was fun and worthwhile. The rounds were intense, but filled with excitement. Overall, the tournament went well.”

For speech, our high school participated and won in many different categories. The speech part of the team competed in a variety of categories, including dramatic interpretation, humorous interpretation, original oratory, and impromptu. While the debate part of the team competed in Lincoln Douglas, Congressional, and Parliamentary.

After over 12 hours at the tournament, Yorba Linda High School left with multiple awards. Jessie Sardina placed second in Dramatic Interpretation, and Aino Hakkinen placed fourth, also in Dramatic Interpretation. Brandon Kuo placed third in Humorous Interpretation. Kelly Nguyen placed fourth in Original Oratory, and Grace Kim placed sixth in Original Oratory. As for debate, Wayne Chan placed sixth in student congress.

Traditionally, Congressional debate is the most popular competition on the YLHS debate team and has the most competitors. However, during this tournament, there were eight competitors for the Parliamentary debate, four teams, as compared to 7 student congress competitors. The last tournament, Fullerton, only had one parliamentary debate team.

Parliamentary debate is a form of partner debate heavily reliant on one’s knowledge of current events. It is a no preparation event. Competitors will enter a room and receive a resolution, or topic to be debated upon. The competitors will then be allowed fifteen minutes of preparation before the debate starts. Although no YLHS students placed for parliamentary debate, it was still a great tournament. Furthermore, Parliamentary debate is a form of debate YLHS students are recently introduced to. The pioneers of Parliamentary debate certainly did very well. One of the topics our parliamentary teams debated on was the North Dakota Oil Pipelines. Impressively, Nate Yi, and AJ song entered into 2 categories of competition, Congress and Parliamentary.

Unlike Parliamentary, Congress requires preparation. After giving a three minute speech, a student congressman then answers questions from cross examination. Student congressional speakers debated on an alliance with Pakistan, physician assisted suicide, and to restrict the usage of drones.

The mustangs were excellent during this tournament, and the speech and debate team looks forward to the next tournament with promise. We are arguably the best.