This story was submitted by speech and debate department chair Jenny Achten.
Senior Andrew Sun was named the congressional debate national champion at the online Tournament of Champions, hosted by the University of Kentucky. This tournament is difficult for students to even qualify to attend, let alone win first place! Students must place highly at regular season tournaments to be invited to attend the event.
Joining Sun in winning awards were seniors Akshay Manglik and Andy Lee, as well as juniors Anshul Reddy and Deven Shah, in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Junior William Chien and sophomore Michelle Jin placed in extemporaneous speaking. Junior Vedant Kenkare won a speaker award in public forum debate. Finally, junior Andrea Thia and sophomore Dyllan Han were in elimination rounds in original oratory. The coaches were also very proud of the other students who qualified to compete at the event, including senior Nathan Ohana, juniors Caden Lin, Arnav Jain and Rohan Rashingkar, sophomores Sara Wan, Carol Wininger, Austina Xu and Rahul Mulpuri, and freshmen Ansh Sheth, Max Xing and Iris Fu. Sun summarized his feelings about the weekend by saying, “Thanks to my amazing parents, coaches and friends (both in and out of congress) — it’s your support that makes this possible! Go Eagles!”
This story was submitted by speech and debate department chair Jenny Achten.
Harker closed out the national championship final round in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Seniors Andy Lee and Akshay Manglik met in the final round and were declared co-champions, along with junior Deven Shah, who was walked over in semifinals by Lee.
After six tough preliminary rounds, the tournament created a single elimination bracket of the top 32 debaters, meaning that the students had to win debate after debate to close out finals. Lee, Manglik and Shah were also joined by junior Anshul Reddy and sophomore Rahul Mulpuri in winning top 20 speaker awards. Reddy and Mulpuri, along with sophomore Deeya Viradia and freshman Ansh Sheth, were also in elimination rounds, giving Harker the best overall representation in elimination rounds.
The online tournament was hosted by the National Debate Coaches Association. In all, 104 schools, representing 28 states, competed at the tournament. Coach Greg Achten was named one of three finalists for Educator of the Year by the organization. Lee summed up the weekend well, saying, “It was a team effort. We could not have done it without our amazing coaches and teammates who continued helping, even when they were no longer in the tournament.”
This story was submitted by Jenny Achten, Harker speech and debate chair.
Harker was the first place overall school at last weekend’s Cal Invitational UC Berkeley speech and debate tournament. The sweepstakes award was calculated by adding up the overall strength of the team across all events. The tournament is massive, with over 2,000 competitors from more than 200 schools representing 28 states.
Outstanding individual performances by many middle and upper school students contributed to this special award. In congressional debate, seniors Jason Lin and Nathan Ohana, junior Aaditya Gulati, and sophomore Arissa Huda won awards. In varsity Lincoln-Douglas, seniors Akshay Manglik and Andy Lee, juniors Anshul Reddy and Deven Shah, sophomores Deeya Viradia and Rahul Mulpuri, as well as freshman Ansh Sheth placed. Junior William Chien and sophomore Michelle Jin placed in extemporaneous speaking. Chien also won an award in impromptu speaking, along with junior Andrea Thia, sophomore Sara Wan and seventh grader Pavitra Kasthuri. Kasthuri also won an award in dramatic interpretation.
In informative speaking, sophomore Zubin Khera and freshman Iris Fu placed. In junior varsity Lincoln-Douglas debate, eighth graders Navya Samuel and Stefan Maxim, and seventh graders Ananya Pradhan, Danielle Steinbach, Tanvi Sivakumar, Disha Gupta and Sofia Shah won awards. Eighth graders Veer and Ruhan Sahasi were in elimination rounds of junior varsity public forum debate. In original oratory, senior Julia Biswas, and sophomores Dyllan Han, Austina Xu and Eileen Ma placed. Finally, in varsity public forum debate, award winners included seniors Emma Dionne and Fonda Hu, and juniors Caden Lin, Vedant Kenkare, Rohan Rashingkar, Arnav Jain, Vinay Sudarsanam and Andrew Vodinh-Ho.
This story was submitted by Jenny Achten, grades 6-12 speech and debate chair.
The upper and middle speech and debate teams did not miss a beat as they switched to the new world of online tournaments. Although they look forward to being able to compete in person again, the students have done a wonderful job of adapting and their competitive success highlights their hard work.
In September, the team competed at tournaments hosted by CSU Long Beach, the Greenhill School of Texas, Valley High School in Iowa and Milpitas High School. In October, they were at tournaments held by Yale University, Presentation High School and Damien High School. Award winners are listed by competition event below. Events are in the varsity division, unless otherwise noted.
Original oratory: Andrea Thia, William Chien, grade 11; Sara Wan, grade 10
Congressional debate: Nathan Ohana, grade 12; April Sun, Aaditya Gulati, grade 11
Lincoln-Douglas debate: Akshay Manglik, Andy Lee, grade 12; Rohan Thakur, Anshul Reddy, Deven Shah, grade 11; Rahul Mulpuri, Deeya Viradia, grade 10; Ansh Sheth, grade 9
Impromptu speaking: William Chien, Andrea Thia, grade 11; Dyllan Han, grade 10
Dramatic interpretation: Dyllan Han, grade 10
Extemporaneous speaking: Michelle Jin, grade 10; Ella Lan, grade 9
Public forum debate: Melody Luo, Vienna Parnell, Vedant Kenkare, Caden Lin, Rohan Rashingkar, Arnav Jain, grade 11; Carol Wininger, grade 10; Max Xing, grade 9
Junior varsity Lincoln-Douglas debate: Stefan Maxim, grade 8
Junior varsity public forum debate: Ruhan Sahasi, Veer Sahasi, grade 8
Novice Lincoln-Douglas debate: Aarush Vailaya, grade 8; Ananya Pradhan, Sofia Shah, grade 7
This story was submitted by speech and debate department chair Jenny Achten.
At the 2020 National Speech & Debate Tournament, held online June 14-20, rising senior Andrew Sun was awarded the Congressional Debate Leadership Bowl by his fellow final round competitors. Each student (all from different schools) was asked to vote for the one competitor that best embodied ideal debate skills and outstanding character. Reaching the final round is also a huge honor as the tournament had over 450 competitors, each of whom had to qualify by placing in the top 5 percent of their local districts. The coaches were thrilled that Sun’s hard work was nationally recognized. Also reaching elimination rounds were rising senior Jason Lin in congressional debate and Avi Gulati ’20 in original oratory.
“Closing out the top two spots in original oratory stands out as an achievement that was unparalleled by any other,” said Heath Martin, a member of the California Coast District Committee and director of speech and debate at Presentation High School. Odekirk’s hard work in serving local competitions, which included streamlining the process of running tournaments, was also a factor. “His was a unanimous selection by the committee this year,” said Martin. “We are very proud to have him as our Coach of the Year. It’s a decision we know we got right.”
This story was submitted by Harker speech and debate department chair Jenny Achten.
Harker placed first out of 191 schools for overall team performance at a tournament held by the University of California, Berkeley, Feb. 15-17. The tournament hosted 2,458 students from 22 states, as well as teams from Taiwan. It is an honor to do so well at such a large and prestigious event.
Contributing to the award were the elimination round performances by many students across the events. In varsity Lincoln-Douglas debate, awards were won by seniors Sachin Shah and Maddie Huynh, juniors Andy Lee and Akshay Manglik, sophomores Rohan Thakur and Deven Shah, and grade 8 students Krish Mysoor and Ansh Sheth. Senior Avi Gulati and freshman Michelle Jin were in elimination rounds in impromptu speaking. In congressional debate, seniors Annie Ma, David Feng, Nakul Bajaj and Tiffany Zhao, as well as juniors Jason Lin, Nathan Ohana, Helen Li and Andrew Sun, won trophies. In junior varsity Lincoln-Douglas, freshman Annmaria Antony and grade 7 debaters Stefan Maxim and Aarush Vailaya were award winners. In original oratory, Gulati and freshmen Austina Xu and Dyllan Han took home honors. In program oral interpretation, senior Nikki Solanki won a top award. In public forum debate, seniors Amanda Cheung and Ellen Guo placed in elimination rounds. Finally, Gulati and Jin placed in extemporaneous speaking. The coaches had a great time celebrating with the whole team!