U-High varsity debaters Mahi Shah and Cyrus Esmailzadeh were named to the all-state IHSA debate team at the state policy debate tournament over spring break from March 17-18.

To earn all-state honors, Mahi and Cyrus finished in the top 10 speakers of the tournament. They finished with a 7-3 preliminary record and made it to the quarterfinals. 

The tournament was hosted at Lab, the first time for an IHSA state tournament. 

“Overall, this year has been pretty successful for us. We’ve had a lot of success,” Mahi said.

Mahi said that one way she could improve would be to diversify strategy when going into tournaments. Mahi said she does “feel pretty good” even though the team was eliminated in the quarterfinals.

Cyrus feels similarly about his performance and thought that this competition was a unique experience and seeing so many fellow debaters from Illinois at Lab was cool.

Cyrus said, “I think we did well overall … and even though we didn’t come out on top, we had a lot of fun and got some good practice for nationals.”

Duo Sasha Duda and Siddarth Reddy also competed and finished with an even record. 

This was the debate team’s last regular season competition this year, but Mahi and Cyrus will be competing April 15-17 in the Tournament of Champions.