The bomb cyclone, an East Coast snowstorm, caused the cancellation of a portion of the Newark Invitational debate tournament, which two students attended from Jan. 5-7.

Lauren Morganbesser ’19 and Chronicle staff writer Alexandra Mork ’20 took part in both the tournament and in the invitation-only Round Robin tournament which had been scheduled to take place before the regular tournament began.

The Round Robin portion of the tournament, however, was canceled due to bad weather conditions and the inability of many debaters to make it to New Jersey.

Even though only the Round Robin was canceled, nearly half of the tournament competitors were forced to drop out because of the blizzard hitting the North East.

Mork finished the preliminary rounds tied for second place with a total of four wins and won her Octafinals round, advancing to quarterfinals.

Morganbesser tied for third place at the end of the preliminary rounds, with three wins, but lost in her Octafinals round.

Mork said that although the tournament didn’t necessarily go as they had hoped, since it was one of the first tournaments on their latest topic, the team is looking at this as an opportunity to look back on what they struggled with and work to improve for the future.

Morganbesser agreed that the tournament proved to be a great learning opportunity.

“This tournament was great practice for the next couple of months,” Morganbesser said. “It was also incredibly interesting because a lot of the arguments we debated were a lot different than the ones you usually hear on the west coast. Because of that, I think that the tournament was a success because we learned so much.”

Following the tournament, Mork and Morganbesser visited New York City.