As final arguments are being given and the cases closing, debate team members reflect on this past season, and with a relatively young team, debaters prepare for their post-season tournaments after a most successful season.
Even with many new members joining this year, head debate coach Steven Fetzik believes his team was very successful .
“We’re definitely a freshman, sophomore, junior laden team this year,” explains Fetzik, “but we’re getting great leadership from our seniors and that’s helping us have a really successful season.”
In fact, the novice team of Aaron Emmerich and Austin Fields went undefeated in the league championships just before Thanksgiving, taking second place, and even two other novice teams went 3-1, placing 5th and 6th.
“This season went really well. Lauren and I placed at the Brainerd Invitational,” explains returning member, Junior Megan Houle.
At the varsity level, the junior/sophomore team of Cassie Stierns and Joe Blom went undefeated and took first place in the league championships just before Thanksgiving, and taking fifth place after going 3-1 was varsity team Lauren Handzel and Megan Houle.
Looking at the rest of the season, the team will be preparing for the National Forensic League National Qualifying Tournament.
“We’ll be preparing for [qualifiers] at our St. Paul Academy tournament this weekend,” said Houle.
And as for next season, coach Steven Fetzik hopes it will be a good one.
“We have a big group of young, enthusiastic debaters,” Fetzik explained. “They practice hard and it shows in the results of the tournaments.”