Nine debaters competed at the Stanford Invitational Speech & Debate Tournament in Palo Alto Feb. 8-11. Shelby Heitner ’14 and Tommy Choi ’14 advanced to the double and triple octafinal rounds, respectively.

Every debater who competed at the Golden Desert Invitational Debate Tournament in Las Vegas Feb. 2-4 made it to the elimination rounds of the tournament and five won speaker awards. Julie Engel ’14 lost in the final round and received her third bid to the national Tournament of Champions. Amelia Miller ’15 lost in the quarterfinal round.

Overall, Choi won Fourth Speaker, Miller received Ninth Speaker, William Gingold ’14 won 12th Speaker, Andrew Sohn ’13 won 13th Speaker and Engel won 14th Speaker.

Annie Kors ’14 and Michael O’Krent ’14 joined the team to coach fellow debaters with Head Coach Mike Bietz.

Kors and O’Krent will debate at the Harvard University Round Robin next weekend while Brendan Gallagher ’13 and Engel will participate in the Cal Round Robin at University of California, Berkeley.
The team has a total of 18 bids and six members qualified to the TOC, the most of any school in the country. Debaters need two bids, each earned in an advanced round of any individual tournament, to qualify for the national competition, held April 27-29 at the University of Kentucky.