The U-High debate team achieved several high scores and speaker awards at their most recent competitions: Feb. 7 at Maine East High School and Feb. 14 at Harvard University. Due to their success, the team will now proceed to the state competition.

At the Maine East competition, one team placed doubles, and three placed preliminaries.  Additionally, at Harvard, sophomore Brandon Coston-Criswell was the 17th speaker out of 216 who received awards. 

Sophomore Quinn Douglas thought that a sense of community between team members and devoting time to practice contributed to their overall success.

“I think that we did pretty well at Harvard because we spent a lot of time doing different drills and prepping blocks,” Quinn said.

It wasn’t the only factor that resulted in their awards. Beyond just practice, Quinn finds that there is also a sense of community in debate.

“I think we all like each other,” Quinn said. “We can spend time together and play games together, we get food together.”

Though these students might not be close friends outside of debate, they still foster an accepting and supportive environment. 

“It’s really fun, because we have a nice time and are able to have fun together even if we don’t hang out at school,” Quinn said.

The debate team’s hard work and dedication evidently paid off, allowing them to achieve several high-scoring partnerships and speaker awards.