Over the years, the school debate team has collected many trophies in several events. This year was no exception, taking a state title for the 17th time in school history and the 4-speaker team winning their 10th in a row in 5A.
Debate teacher Ryan McFarland said the group is extremely dedicated to debate and he was confident in their abilities to win.
“[The team is] obviously very talented; they all work incredibly hard,” McFarland said. “They spend a lot of time inside and outside of school working on [their skills], but they’re also just a fun group of kids to work with that I’ve enjoyed spending my time with.”
Junior Sophia Taghizadeh competed in the state tournament. However, she said she did not expect to be debating in the first place.
“I actually kind of joined on accident,” Taghizadeh said. “I needed to take a fine arts credit and I didn’t have enough requirements from middle school to join an art class … so I decided to take [debate].”
This year, Taghizadeh and senior Jessica Dickey competed on the 4-Speaker team as the affirmative side, while juniors Rohan Chalamalasetti and Brayden Presley argued for the negative. She said she was thrilled when they were announced as the winners.
“It’s really exciting to know that you’re continuing on the legacy that a lot of really talented and amazing debaters before you have kept on throughout the school,” Taghizadeh said.
However, as with any competition, the team had to prepare extensively for the tournament. McFarland said his main role was to help with argument structure.
“We talk over both the affirmative strategy when it comes to answering negative arguments as well as what kind of research needs to be done when it comes to the negative side of things,” McFarland said.
Taghizadeh said she used her class time to solidify her research and get ready to go for state.
“We gave practice speeches,” Taghizadeh said. “I did a practice debate a couple of days before the tournament actually happened, just to prepare and practice giving my speeches.”
McFarland said the students put in large amounts of work in their free time and it paid off when they started competing.
“I’m pretty happy with how the team did,” McFarland said. “Especially to do it in the way that they did; they were undefeated. They only lost three ballots, so 45 of a possible 48 judges voted for them, which I think is incredible. It’s very difficult to replicate that.”
