2021-2022 Academic Year

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, February 18-20, UCSD’s Speech & Debate Team journeyed (virtually) to northern California to compete, for the first time in school history, in the Northern California Forensics Association (NCFA) Spring Championships Tournament. The results were stunning. 

The Team earned the Tournament’s First Place Sweepstakes Award (Total team performance amidst four-year schools.) Accentuating this amazing result was the fact that, in many events, UCSD’s Novice Division entries needed to compete in the higher Junior or Senior (Open) Divisions due to the limited number of novices at the tourney. The Team’s sweepstakes achievement at NCFA makes the fourth straight major tournament in which the Team has won Sweepstakes Awards—three of which were for First Place. 

In NPDA Debate (two vs. two), in the Open Division, Joseph Berck and Samyak Karnavat reached the Quarterfinals. Samyak Karnavat was ranked 8th speaker among all debaters. In the Junior Division, Saloni Agrawal and David Cordier fell only in the final round via a very close 2-1 judges’ decision, earning 2nd Place. Despite being novices, David Cordier earned top speaker award and Saloni Agrawal was right behind with the 2nd Place speaker award in this event. Kiera Hasan and Aryaman Pachori reached the Semi-finals and earned 3rd and 4th Place speaker awards, respectfully. Kevin Gong and Hebron Ferrier also reached the Semi-finals, as Kevin Gong earned the 5th Place speaker award. Gong and Ferrier were also novices competing in a higher division. 

In IPDA Debate (one vs. one), UCSD “closed out” the Junior Division. A “close-out” occurs when the Elimination Rounds reach a point where all remaining competitors are from the same school. Thus, co-Champions were Ariya Uyeno, Albert Miao, and Joey Miller. Our novices also had to compete in this division; Jiayi Hu won the 4th Place “Top Novice” award. 

In the speech events, 13 awards were earned, along with four “Top Novice” awards, as depicted in the following table.

Head Coach, Robert Campbell, concluded, “Even though there will be a few tournaments in Spring Quarter, our 2021-22 season basically concludes with two major tournaments: last weekend’s, and our very first, NCFA Spring Championships in northern California and this coming weekend’s southern California PSCFA Spring Championships. Thirty-nine team members dominated NCFA; 41 are planning to do the same this weekend.”

On Saturday, February 12, UCSD’s Speech & Debate Team competed in their first tournament of Winter Quarter, virtually, by attending the National Forensics Online Quarterly tourney. For debate at this tournament, only IPDA (one-on-one format) was offered. Four UCSD debaters  “closed out” the tournament.

A “close-out” occurs when the Elimination Rounds reach a point where all remaining competitors are from the same school. The Finals were “all UCSD”. Akshat Donti, President and Team Captain, along with Michael Wagreich, earned the Gold First Place Medals, while Jared Hoffart and Joey Miller captured Silver Second Place Medals. 

In the speech events, Christian Kim, the Team’s Vice President of Coaching, grabbed the Silver Second Place Medal in Extemporaneous Speech. 

In Informative Speech, Rebecca Du won the Silver Second Place Medal and teammate, Kaitlyn Chin followed right behind capturing the Bronze Third Place Medal. 

Simultaneously, three debate teams virtually attended Cornell University’s “Novice Nationals British Parliamentary Debate Tournament”. The team of Brandon Liu and Joey Wang clawed their way amidst 40 schools, then emerged from the Preliminary Rounds to enter the Quarterfinals, where they defeated Loyola U. of Chicago. Losing in the Semifinals to Princeton, their achievement was another school record for UCSD’s young Debate Team. 

Head Coach, Robert Campbell, observed, “The Team made a difficult decision to not attend an  earlier-in-the-Quarter live tournament, choosing not to risk exposure to the Covid-19 virus just prior to the beginning of Winter Quarter classes. Thus, they were anxious to get competing  again. ‘Closing out’ a tournament is very rare, but it continues to illustrate the focus, determination, and stellar performance of this team, despite all the obstacles everyone is  dealing with these days. And given that the debate format of British Parliamentary is so new  to the team, nearly reaching the finals at the National Novice Tournament was a spectacular achievement.” 

At the Griffin Invitational Speech and Debate Tournament, hosted by Grossmont College, UCSD completed its “trifecta” of Sweepstakes Awards, having earned such in all three of the domestic tournaments attended this Fall Quarter, an achievement never before reached in UCSD history. At Griffin alone, the team earned two Sweepstakes Awards: 2nd Place Sweepstakes for All-School, All-Debate results and 3rd Place Sweepstakes for All-Tournament results. These Awards follow the 1st Place Sweepstakes Awards earned at the Crossman and Sunset Cliffs tournaments earlier this Quarter. Gold, Silver, or Bronze awards were achieved in all events: Speech, IPDA Debate, and NPDA Debate at the Griffin.

Meanwhile, six members of the team, who specialize in the British Parliamentary (BP) Debate format, stayed up all night Saturday and Sunday to be on an international stage at the prestigious Cambridge IV tournament. The three BP teams achieved UCSD record-setting status in this format and outperformed such schools as UCLA, University of Chicago, Princeton, and Oxford.

At the overnights’ Cambridge IV British Parliamentary Debate Tournament, the three participating UCSD teams earned more wins, more second places (BP format consists of 4 competing teams in every Round), and more points than in any prior BP tourney. Amidst the 250 debaters from literally all over the world, Brandon Liu placed 20th among Novice speakers.

In the bright California daylight, at the Griffin tournament, Speech events occurred Friday, IPDA (one-on-one debate) happened Saturday, and NPDA (two-on-two debate) was Sunday. The tournament was comprised of 32 schools from eight states, ranging from California to Arizona to Texas to Massachusetts; from Florida to Kansas to Illinois and Ohio. Friday, in the Open (most experienced) Division, Alyssa Gutierrez rose to 3rd Place in Poetry and Michael Wagreich finished in 5th Place in Extemporaneous speaking.

In the IPDA competition, Jared Hoffart placed 3rd in the Open Division. Our novices rocked their division with Subramanian Arunachalam seizing 3rd Place, Leslie Cheng capturing 2nd Place, and both Chaturika Bandara and David Cordier earning Gold Medals (1st Place).

Wrapping up the tourney with NPDA, in the Novice Division, the team of Isaac Min and Rafi Overton won 3rd Place. Ending with a pinnacle performance in the Open Division, the team of Nikhil Emde and Michael Wagreich brought home the Gold Medal for 1st Place.

Head Coach, Robert Campbell, summarized the team’s Fall Quarter effort: “International recognition in both Canada and Europe; national recognition at three, California-based, widely attended tournaments—an amazing achievement for a team only three years old. Sweepstakes Awards earned at three consecutive tournaments, two of which were for 1st Place—practically unbelievable. The focus, professionalism, commitment, and engagement of this group of UCSD students is exemplary. I even tried to give them a day off Monday, November 15, after this arduous weekend, but they would have none of that. They insisted on practicing Monday night and we don’t have another tournament until January, 2022!! This team knows they are making UCSD history. They’re setting records and are hungry to set more. They want their university to know how much they want Speech & Debate to be here to stay.”

The UCSD Speech & Debate Team is sponsored by UCSD’s Rady School of Management.

On October 22-24, UCSD’s Speech & Debate Team participated in the Sunset Cliffs Speech and Debate Tournament hosted live at Point Loma Nazarene University. The results included many “firsts” and several UCSD school records. Taking on 27 colleges and universities—from Vanderbilt to the University of Utah; from the University of Southern California to the United States Air Force Academy—UCSD’s team placed the highest number of Finalists in all three competition categories (Individual Events (Speech), NPDA (Team Debate), and IPDA (Individual Debate)) at a single tournament in school history.

For the second tournament in a row, UCSD captured the 4-Year School First Place Sweepstakes Award, earned via its overall team performance. In fact, UCSD amassed over twice the sweepstakes points as the 2nd Place university. Beginning with Friday’s Individual Events, UCSD had entries in all three Divisions: Open, Junior, and Novice. In the Open Division, Nikhil Emde placed 4th in Extemporaneous Speech, while Michael Wagreich rose to 6th Place in Impromptu Speech. In the Novice Division, both Munira Ibrahim and Joey Miller became Finalists in Extemporaneous Speech and David Cordier captured 2nd Place in the event. In Impromptu Speech, both Leslie Cheng and David Cordier were Finalists. In Informative Speech, Nikita Chepuri became a Finalist, while Kaitlyn Chin earned 5th Place and Rebecca Du rose to 3rd Place. In Persuasive Speech, Allison D’Souza became a Finalist, while Nikita Prasad ended at the top with 1st Place.

Saturday was devoted to NPDA (two vs. two) debate. In the Open Division, the team of Nikhil Emde and John Melton reached the Quarterfinals. Aryaman Pachori and Michael Wagreich captured 2nd Place, falling only in the final round. Top Speaker Awards were earned by Samyak Karnavat (10th Place), John Melton (6th Place), and Michael Wagreich (5th Place). In the Junior Division, the team of Sachi Goel and Harshil Shah reached the final round and earned 2nd Place. Top Speaker Awards in this Division went to Harshil Shah (3rd Place) and Sachi Goel (2nd Place). In the Novice Division, Sanika Bharvirkar and Khushi Kumar climbed to the Quarterfinals. Top Speaker Awards went to Khushi Kumar (8th Place), Albert Miao (7th Place) and Sanika Bharvirkar (5th Place).

Sunday’s results in IPDA (one vs. one) debate not only set a school record, but also delayed the tournament for over an hour, as–in the history of southern California debate–no single school had ever qualified 13 competitors as Finalists, which temporarily overwhelmed the computer software managing the tournament. In the Open Division, Bella Lalanne reached the Quarterfinals. In the Junior Division, Srijan Chakraborty, Courtney Chan, Akshat Donti, and Grace Ji reached the Quarterfinals. And in the Novice Division, six members of the UCSD Team earned Bronze (3rd Place) Awards: Leslie Cheng, David Cordier, Vincent Ho, Grace Vallen, Ben Velasco, and Samuel Zho; while Gold (1st Place) Awards were captured by Munira Ibrahim and Joey Miller.

After the tournament was over, Conrad Hack, Head Coach of Speech & Debate at Concordia University, observed, “This was a command performance by UCSD. Simply incredible.”

Head Coach Robert Campbell remarked, “This team keeps setting records. It felt like we not only participated in this tournament, we also “invaded it”—63 team members and 33 volunteer judges. It was like moving an army from La Jolla to Point Loma! Over 25 trophies earned at a single tournament; other programs would call that a successful season! Two all-event tournaments this Quarter so far yielding two, First Place Sweepstakes Trophies—I see a trend developing.”

The UCSD Speech & Debate Team is sponsored by UCSD’s Rady School of Management.

On October 15-17, UCSD’s Speech & Debate Team kicked off its fourth season by attending (virtually) the Crossman Invitation Tournament, hosted by El Camino College.

Continuing its historical winning record, this year’s team—at their first tournament with many new team members attending their first speech and debate tournament ever—won the 4-Year School First Place Tournament Sweepstakes Award, surpassing 32 schools from Oregon to Arkansas, from Illinois to Texas, and a host of California schools. The Sweepstakes Award is earned by the sum of the total points each team member acquires by placing high in their competitive event and UCSD placed high in many events.

There were fundamentally two distinct tournaments. Friday and Saturday focused upon debate, while Sunday was devoted to speech events, with also a separate IPDA debate tournament.

In NPDA debate (two-vs.-two), Brandon Liu rose to 7th place among all debate speakers in the Open (most experienced) Division. In the Novice Division, the team of Devin Miller & Rafi Overton reached the Semi-Finals, while Vincent Ho & Albert Miao only fell in the Finals and earned 2nd Place. For speaker awards in the Novice Division, UCSD crowded the field. Mae Pan took 9th place; Karina Yu, 8th; Vincent Ho, 7th; Saloni Agrawal, 6th; Albert Miao, 5th; and Rafi Overton rose to 3rd place.

In IPDA debate (one-vs.-one), Jared Hoffart won the bronze medal, achieving 3rd place in the Open Division. Meanwhile, in the Novice Division, UCSD sported four 3rd place (bronze award) winners—Subramanian Arunachalam, Aaron Kirk, Jesus Garibay-Barajas, and Kayla Niblett, while two teammates, Srijan Chakraborty and Grace Vallen, captured 2nd place (silver award).

In Sunday’s IPDA tournament, Jared Hoffart secured bronze (3rd place), while teammate, Bella Lalanne only fell in the final round capturing silver (2nd place). In Novice, bronze was earned by Eva Marts Skoglund.

This debating success was strongly supplemented by teamwide success in speech events.

In the Open Division, Christian Kim took home 2nd place in both Extemporaneous and Impromptu events, while Jose Chavez rose to finalist in Extemporaneous. In the Informative event, both Chaturika Bandara and Kaitlyn Chin were finalists.

In the Novice Division, David Cordier took 2nd place in Extemporaneous, while four teammates were finalists in Impromptu: Leslie Cheng, Kayla Niblett, Shreya Musini, and Amy To. And while Nikita Chepuri rose to finalist in Informative, Rebecca Du secured 3rd place. Closing out this stellar speech performance, both Leslie Cheng and Rafi Overton were finalists in Speech to Entertain.

Head Coach Robert Campbell observed, “Ironically, but not surprisingly, we start our fourth season just like we ended our third season—with a tournament Sweepstakes Trophy. Due to our growing success, and thorough on-campus recruiting program, we now have the largest (100 members) Speech & Debate Team on any university campus in America. Crossman was great practice for next week when we actually travel to Point Loma Nazarene University for the nationwide, prestigious Sunset Cliffs Tournament.”

The UCSD Speech & Debate Team is sponsored by UCSD’s Rady School of Management.