The SDA Speech and Debate team had a wonderful start to the new school year, growing from 52 students last year to 92 students this school year and competing in local, regional and national tournaments.

SDA Speech and Debate also became a member of the National Forensics League Prestigious 100 club, which means SDA is now recognized as a top ten percent school in the nation.

The team’s first debate tournament took place at Mission Vista High School in Oceanside Sept. 15th. Overall, the team almost closed out policy debate and did very well in parliamentary debate:

• Chris Schenkhuizenm: 6th novice Lincoln Douglas debate
• Keenan Rodewald and George Irouv: 3rd place varsity parliamentary debate
• Sarah Dykshorn and Shawn Le: 2nd place novice parliamentary debate
• Gilad Barach and Tenley Feinberg: 3rd place novice parliamentary debate
• Nate Neumann and Andrew Kenney: 7th place novice policy debate
• Ewan Callender and Shovik Sarkar: 6th place novice policy debate
• Casey Galleher and Riley Glatts: 5th place novice policy debate
• Declan Powers and Alec Maskiewicz: 4th place novice policy debate
• Sam Blakistone and Kate Shapiro: 1st place novice policy debate
• Austin Ryan and Cameron Bridges: 6th place varsity policy debate
• Johnny Menhennet and Henry Zhu: 4th place varsity policy debate
• Taylor Knudson and Jerry Jin: 3rd place varsity policy debate
• Kira Gaby and Delaney Duff: 1st place varsity policy debate

After a wonderful performance from the debate team, the speech team competed the next weekend on Sept. 22nd at Carlsbad High School. This year, many new students performed a variety of speeches.

• Ty Goering won 5th Place Novice Original Advocacy, with a speech about the state of mental health patients in the United States.
• Cameron Sippel won 6th Place Novice Original Oratory, with a speech about middle school transition to high school.
• Gilad Barach won 4th place Novice Impromptu.
• Stacy Li won 6th place Varsity Original Prose and Poetry, with a story about a superhero that gets demoted and has to go to high school again.
• Roya Chagnon won 5th place Varsity Original Prose and Poetry, with a story and a performance called “Dance Moms”.
• Rebecca Lim and Kiley Necchocea placed 4th place Novice Varsity Duo Interpretation, with a 10-minute performance of Peter Pan.
• Stacy Li and Lauren Nelson placed 3rd place Varsity Duo Interpretation with a 10-minute performance of the Book of Awesome.

Elliot Horen and Michael Wimsatt traveled to Texas to attend the prestigious Greenhill Round Robin, in which only the top policy debate teams in the nation compete. They earned their first Tournament of Champions bid of the season and were ranked among the best in the nation in policy debate.

The first major invitational that the team attended took place Sept. 29th and Sept. 30th at CSU Long Beach. Over 38 students competed in a variety of debate events. The team won 1st place in debate sweeps and almost closed out novice policy debate.

Congratulations to the following students:

• Andrew Kenney and Nate Neumann Finalists in policy novice debate; they won 2nd place overall in novice policy debate
• Quarter Finalists in novice policy Rebecca Lim and Kylie Neccochea
• Semi Finalists in novice policy Kate Shapiro and Sam Blackistone
• Octo Finalists in novice policy Declan Powers and Alec Maskiewicz, Elizabeth Loren and Camille Schultz, Sarah Dykshorn and Michael Lonsway
• Octo finalists in varsity policy David Galloway and Joseph Swit
• Semifinalists in JV policy debate Cameron Bridges and Austin Ryan

The following students won awards for best speakers:

• Kate Shapiro won 8th place
• Rebecca Lim won 4th place
• Nate Neumann won 2nd place

San Dieguito Academy Speech and Debate team has always had a strong program, but this year the students have really pushed themselves and proved to be debating and performing among the best at the Tournament of Champions and the California Speech and Debate Association State Championship.

This year, SDA hosted the second weekend of qualifiers for the San Diego Imperial Valley League and was able to feed and host 31 rooms to over 150 competitors and 70 parent and community judges. Donations were made from the following vendors:

• Starbucks on 258 N. El Camino Real in Encinitas
• Papa Johns Pizza on 337 N. El Camino Real in Encinitas
• Einstein Bagels on 106 N. El Camino Real in Encinitas
• St. Tropez Bakery in Encinitas
• Pizzicato in Encinitas

The following SDA speech and debate students will be representing the San Diego Imperial Valley this year at the state tournament in San Francisco:

• Johnny Menhennet and Joseph Swit 2nd Place Policy Debate
• Keenan Rodewald and David Galloway 5th Place Policy Debate
• Desiree Otillio and Cameron Koob 3rd Place Parli Debate
• Taylor Knudson and Calvin Borchers 4th Place Parli Debate
• Johnny Menhennet and Riley Murphy 2nd Place Duo Interpretation (They perform Mean Girls)
• Claire Li 5th Place Impromptu (made it into States)

Michael Wimsatt and Elliot Horen will be attending the Tournament of Champions in Policy Debate and representing SDA among the best debaters in the country. They won three bids to this tournament throughout the year. Students must earn a bid in national debate tournaments to be able to be invited to The Tournament of Champions. This prestigious competition is the same weekend as the State Championship, so they will be in Kentucky while the rest of the team will be in San Francisco.

I want to recognize the hard work of the students who did not qualify to States, but still placed in the top 20 percent of their events in the San Diego Imperial Valley League. Some of the students had to compete against 60 other teams or students.

• George Irouv and Austin Ryan 6th place Policy Debate
• Kira Gaby and Stacy Li 8th Place Policy Debate
• Taylor Knudson and Delaney Duff 10th Place Policy Debate
• Riley Murphy 8th Place Lincoln Douglas Debate
• Claire Li and Shannon O’Donnell 11th Place in Parli Debate
• Stacy Li- 13th Place in Original Prose and Poetry
• Kira Gaby- 7th Place in Impromptu
• Riley Murphy- 13th Place in Impromptu
• Cameron Koob- 14th Place in Impromptu
• Shannon O’Donnell and Hannah Wolfe 9th Place in DUO Interpretation
• Roya Chagnon- 10th Place in Humorous Interpretation
• Stacy Li- 11th Place in Humorous Interpretation
• Johnny Menhennet- 14th Place in National Extemp
• Cameron Koob- 7th Place in International Extemp
• Taylor Knudson- 13th Place in International Extemp

Overall as a school we placed 4th and we only had 50 percent of the entries that the schools that placed 1st through 3rd, so we did major damage in small numbers. Congrats to those students and San Francisco here we come!!!