Log on to the zoom meeting.
Write speeches.
Win.
The Westminster School hosted an online debate tournament from Oct. 18-19. The school fielded two teams, one for the Junior Varsity (JV) division and the other for the Varsity division.
The JV team, which consisted of sophomores Cristian Duarte and Nathan Tan, reached the elimination rounds before ultimately losing to Millard North End (Nebraska).
The Varsity team, consisting of seniors Deven Pietrzak and Andrew Jin, achieved second place in the tournament, beating the likes of Northview (Georgia), Liberal Arts and Science (Texas) and Quarry Lane (California).
The debaters also achieved success individually, as Jin was ranked as the fifth best debater out of 111 total, and Pietrzak ranked third.
This debate success comes as a result of a lot of hard work in class. Students research this year’s debate topic, “The United States federal government should significantly strengthen its protection of domestic intellectual property rights in copyrights, patents, and/or trademarks”, throughout every class.
Additional practice for underclassmen comes through practice debates with debate coach Tim Mahoney.
“All this practice really helps us hone our skills and prepare us for tournaments,” Duarte said.
However, the primary form of improvement comes from participating.
“90% of preparing for future tournaments and improving technical skills comes from competing. Also, judges give a lot of feedback on how to get better, ” Mahoney said. “The more you debate, the more you know about the topic and the more prepared you’ll be.”
Now, the debate team looks forward to the Heart of Texas Invitational, hosted bythe school.
Debaters look forward to it and are grateful for the previous practice they got from the previous tournaments, including the Westminster tournament.
“The only way you can learn is from experience, and we only get better,” Duarte said.
