Two senior captains of the debate team placed third in the Pace Round Robin event in Atlanta Jan. 24-25. They proceeded to compete in the Barkley Forum at Emory University from Jan. 26-28, where the pair reached the quarterfinals.

Seniors Mahi Shah and Cyrus Esmailzadeh were the only duo chosen for the events.

“Emory tournament has a big waitlist. Some of our other teams haven’t been competing as much, so they were waitlisted and unfortunately, they did not get off the waitlist,” Mahi said.

While she is happy with the results, Mahi hopes for bigger goals.

“I’m really proud of us because Emory is a hard tournament,” she said. “We have made quarters quite a few times. So we really want to break through that. We have made it two semis before in a couple of tournaments, but we really are looking to win a national championship in April.”

The team now focuses on the next tournament at Harvard University, where most of the members, including the novice ninth graders, will participate.

“We’re really excited because we’re taking the novices to their first major and competitive tournament, the Harvard tournament, in a few weeks,” Mahi said. “Varsity, novice and JV will go, and then from there, we might take them to a national tournament.”

She is proud of the growth the team has experienced.

“I’m really proud of, you know, the team’s willingness to do the drills. The novices are really committed, they’re always asking questions, taking good notes,  and they want to compete,” Mahi said. “So I’m really happy about how we’ve grown the team over the past couple years.”