Sara Evall ’15 and Amelia Miller ’15 won the Ljutomer International World Schools Debate Tournament March 6-9 in Slovenia for the United States Debate team. More than 40 teams participated.

Evall and Miller faced the other three-person U.S. team in the finals. Evall and Miller’s team won debating the topic of whether voting in European Parliament elections should be mandatory.

The duo prepared for over a month before the tournament.

Miller said that once the team found enough research articles, they had to outline, write and rehearse the cases for their side of the topic.

Each member of the team specialized in a certain topic and peer edited the others’ findings as feedback.

“Half of the motions are impromptu, so all the preparation that we do for those is just staying up to date with global affairs,” Miller said. “We have one hour of prep time before the round with only a dictionary and an almanac.”

All six U.S. debaters placed as top 10 speakers in the tournament.

“Winning the tournament was very rewarding, especially after all of the preparation we had done,” Evall said. “Overall, we faced talented teams from around the world and were able to meet some truly incredible people.”