Debate team travels to Las Vegas for competitive tournament

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Ben Richardson, Reporter

The debate team travelled to Las Vegas Feb. 1-2 for a National Circuit Tournament in a bid to earn a spot in the end-of-year Tournament of Champions.

Although it’s a competitive tournament, the team did fairly well, according to Annette Kim, a captain on the team.

She said highlights included novice debater Serena Thomas winning a Speaker Award for her performance in the tournament.

The tournament also acted as a testing ground for the new dynamic approach the team is taking in pairing up debaters.

“Generally, upperclassmen stay with their partner for the whole year, but it’s been a bit more dynamic this year,” Annette said. “This tournament was cool because we got to try out a lot of different pairings from usual.”

Sophomores Aaron Kim and Brent Pennington got two semi-finals at the Harvard national forensics debate tournament for junior varsity. They lost against Niles West High School 2-1.

The team will be competing in tournaments every weekend for the rest of the month.