Stuyvesant’s Speech and Debate Team competed in the annual Villiger Tournament on the weekend of November 17. Stuyvesant won second place in the team sweepstakes, the ranking of a school’s overall performance.
Regis High School won first place in the team sweepstakes. Iona Preparatory School placed third.
Hundreds of high school students from across America participated in the tournament, held at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This year, Stuyvesant sent 24 Debate team members, 51 Speech team members and 4 Public Forum contestants to the competition.
“The good thing about Villiger is that there’s so many different people from different places,” junior and Extemporaneous Speaking quarter-finalist Grace Aviles said. “It’s not like other national tournaments that are really intense, where you can’t be friends with your competition.”
“[Villiger] is much more relaxed than say, States or Nationals,” senior, Speech team captain and Dramatic Performance third place winner Chloe Goodwin said. “It’s also the first chance for the team to go away for the weekend. People get to try new categories and the freshmen get the chance to bond with other members. There’s a much wider variety of competition compared to local tournaments.”
Not everyone on the Speech and Debate team competed in Villiger. “Selection was based on who went to practices, had cases on time, worked the most with mentors [and who was] able to provide parents to come along with us to judge,” senior, LD Debate team captain and semi-finalist Yan Slavinskiy said.
All participating students competed on Saturday. Students who advanced to the next round competed on Sunday.
For Speech team members, the elimination rounds were broken down into quarter final, semi-final and final rounds.
The Lincoln Douglas (LD) Debate elimination rounds were broken down into double octo-final, octo-final, quarter-final, semi-final and final rounds. Policy Debate did not have an octo-final elimination round.
Stuyvesant competed in the Villiger Tournament for the last 24 years. This is the second time in 14 years that Stuyvesant did not place first in the sweepstakes award.
In 2004, Holy Ghost Preparatory School placed first.
Speech and Debate team members still enjoyed the tournament. “Going to a nationally recognized tournament and competing in a field of 150 debaters is always a gratifying experience,” Slavinskiy said. “Villiger becomes a tournament that can propel our team to even greater successes during the rest of the debate season.”
“Villiger is possibly the most intense speech tournament of the year since it’s only one month into the season,” senior and Oral Interpretation semi-finalist Gianfranco Parico said. “Some kids stayed as late as 8:00 [p.m.] in school just to get prepped. Being one of those kids, I began to miss something called sleep. But it was definitely worth it.”
“It was a great way to introduce new members and get them excited about their Speech and Debate careers,” senior and Duo Interpretation semi-finalist Nicki Fleischner said.
“Even though we didn’t win, I can say I’m proud of the team as a whole and we had fun,” senior and Speech team member Paul Silverman said.
Extemporaneous Speaking:
Danielle Blackman (Junior)- Quarter Finalist
Grace Aviles (Junior)- Quarter Finalist
Congress:
Harlan Downs-Tepper (Junior)- 6th place
Amitav Chakraborty (Junior)- Finalist
Joseph Puma (Sophomore)- Finalist
Original Oratory:
Jennifer Lau (Senior)- Semi-finalist
Oral Interpretation:
Gianfranco Parico (Senior)- Semi-finalist
Evan Kolesnick (Senior)- Semi-finalist
Dramatic Performance:
Chloe Goodwin (Senior)- 3rd place
Nina Charap (Senior)- Semi-finalist
Declamation:
Kashyap Rajagopal (Sophomore)- 1st place
Sadie Bergen (Freshman)- 5th place
Audrey Fleischner (Freshman)- 6th place
Duo Interpretation:
Chloe Goodwin & Nicki Fleischner (Seniors)- Semi-finalist
Lincoln-Douglas Debate
Yan Slavinskiy (Senior) - Semi-finalist
Policy Debate
Daniel Goldstern (junior) /
Zeeshan Rizwan (senior) – quarterfinals