The varsity Lincoln-Douglas debate team competed at the annual Loyola Invitational hosted by Loyola High School from Aug. 30-Sept. 2. 11 members of the team competed in the tournament, debating whether the United States ought to require a living wage for workers.

Presentations Managing Editor William Liu ’25 made it to the semifinal round, securing a bid for the JW Patterson Tournament of Champions hosted by the University of Kentucky during April 26-28 next year. Liu also took home the top speaker trophy. Additionally, Kaison Maruyama ’27 and August Sone ’27 advanced to doubles rounds.

Maruyama said he felt rewarded to see everyone have a good experience at the tournament.

“Everyone on the team put in a lot of hard work for this and I’m very glad we all did very well,” Maruyama said.

Since the beginning of this year, the team has been off to a good start, with its debaters winning top speaker awards at three consecutive tournaments. Maruyama won a top speaker award at the National Speech and Debate Season Opener in August. More recently, Lilly Stobo ’26 became the top speaker at the Chuck Ballingall Invitational at Damien High School, with Maruyama as the runner-up.

Varsity Lincoln- Douglas debater Esther Goldman ’26 said she was delighted to see her fellow debaters’ hard work rewarded.

“I’m very proud of August, Kaison, William and Lilly for their great performance,” Goldman said.

Assistant Director of Debate Khamani Griffin, who helped coach the team at the majority of these tournaments, hopes to host debate demonstrations this year.

“I’m looking forward for the team to do some public debates this year,” Griffin said. “We have attended four tournaments so far and won either top speaker or the tournament’s round robin. I would love for the community to see our students showcase their dedication, talent and hard work.”

The debate team hopes to continue to bring home more trophies and debate productively when they travel to San Jose in October for the upcoming Nano Nagle Invitational.