Chesterton hosted their annual Debate tournament this past weekend. Teams from all around the state, including Carmel, West Lafayette, and Fishers, came to compete at the highly anticipated tournament. 

In Congressional Debate, Penn High School took home the first place win in the Novice division while Fishers High School placed first in the Varsity division. Moreover, Chesterton’s Debate Program includes an additional award for Congressional debaters: the James Cavallo Leadership Award. This award is dictated by a student competitor vote rather than a traditional judge vote. A Penn High School competitor had the most votes.

In Novice Lincoln Douglas (LD debate), West Lafayette High School took home first place whereas Fishers High School placed first in the Varsity division. The LD division had 40 total competitors, making it a very cut throat competition.

Although West Lafayette placed first in both the Novice and Varsity Public Forum (PF) debate divisions, Chesterton was right behind them. Freshmen Kassidy Robinson and Mila Beale placed 3rd in the novice division while freshmen Emery McKiddy and Ella Bolinger took 6th. In the Varsity division, seniors Zander Fish and Saanya Agarwal placed 2nd. Fish also took home the shiny gold 1st place plaque in speaking, beating out 42 Varsity PF competitors.

However, Chesterton absolutely dominated in Policy Debate. Sophomores Alaina McGrogan and Milena Letic placed 2nd, winning all 4 of their rounds. Nevertheless, seniors Riley Hawksworth and Freedom Eiden had a perfect record as well and 1 more speaker point, making them the Policy champions. Eiden also placed 1st in speaking out of 34 Policy competitors.

The Debate team plans to bring home even more wins this weekend at Ben Davis High School. Then, they will begin their immense preparations for postseason tournaments in January.