Debate team places fourth at Niles Debate Tournament, secures first bid to Tournament of Champions
Charlotte Henderson
Varsity debaters Connor Booth and Adam Cheema secured a bid to the Tournament of Champions by advancing to semifinals in the Mamaroneck Longhorn Classic and Mahi Shah and Cyrus Esmailzadeh earned a full scholarship for a summer debate camp.
September 20, 2022
The debate team opened the season at the Niles Debate Tournament in Skokie Sept. 9-11 with its best-ever performance at that meet.
The team of Cyrus Esmailzadeh and Mahi Shah placed fourth seed, advancing to finals and securing their first bid to the Tournament of Champions.
Mahi won fourth best speaker and Cyrus won seventh best speaker.
“The tournament ended up going a lot better than we expected,” Mahi said. “We were pretty nervous because right now the team here at Lab is pretty small which makes prepping for competitions a bit harder.”
Team Sasha Duda and Siddharth Reddy competed for the first time in the varsity division.
Mahi said the debate team’s expectations for the rest of the season are recruiting new members and competing against some of the top teams in the country.
