The Flower Mound High School Debate Team swept the competition at the Cal Invitational Debate Tournament hosted by the University of California at Berkeley . The team flew out on February 14, and the tournament began February 18.
Numerous debate team members placed at the tournament. In Varsity Lincoln-Douglas, junior Madhu Kikkeri, senior Jacob Arnett, and senior Matt Gmitro placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, respectively.
“The competition was pretty tough,” Gmitro said. “There were people from all across the nation competing. You had to do different types of preparations depending on who you were going against and what you did.”
Competing in Domestic Extemp, sophomore Angel Gonzalez placed 1st. Under the category of Public Forum Debate, seniors Sam Pietch and Niki Nair placed 3rd. Sophomore Ayesha Karnik placed 3rd in Foreign Extemp. For Prose, sophomore Nikita Verma placed 3rd. Freshman Bennett Eckert placed 1st in Novice Lincoln-Douglas.
“One of the topics was ‘Rehabilitation should to be valued over retribution in the United States criminal justice system,’” freshman Bennett Eckert said.
Individuals and teams who won four of the six preliminary rounds will advance to the elimination rounds and eventually to the finals.
“The competition was extremely straining,” senior Stephen Adkison said. Adkison placed 4th in Varsity Lincoln-Douglas and 5th in Domestic Extemp.
Debate team members took the time to see the sights while they were there as well.
“For the first day, we went to Chinatown,” Eckert said. “And then we also went to North Beach, and took a tour of San Francisco.”
The Debate Team placed in the top tens in every category they competed in.
