This past Saturday, the Chesterton High School Debate team hosted the last regular-season tournament of the Indiana debate season. Chesterton hosted 7 schools and over 200 competitors: a battle between Penn HS, Carmel HS, Chesterton HS, Columbia City HS, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, West Lafayette HS, Laporte HS, and Munster HS. 

The Chesterton tournament offered both varsity and novice divisions (the equivalent to JV) in a total of 5 different events. In the speech and debate community, it’s the norm to host only once or twice a year, so Chesterton won’t host another speech tournament until next season.

In Novice Congress, Madison Smith (9) placed 4th and Jaina Hightower (10) placed 6th out of 8 total entries. In Varsity Congress, Rowan Hartley (11) finaled and placed 5th out of 18 competitors. 

In Novice Public Forum, the team of Brooke Moehl and Kennedy Bisher (both freshmen) placed 6th out of 14 teams. 

In Varsity Public Forum, the team of Lucas Koch and Rian Goins (both seniors) placed 6th out of 28 teams. 

In the final sweepstakes competition, Penn High School took the championship with 93 total points across all events. Munster’s Debate team placed 2nd, closely followed by Carmel High School. Traditionally, the school hosting the tournament removes themselves from the sweepstakes competition, so Chesterton wasn’t ranked among the visiting schools. 

The team is now in the postseason stage of competition. In January, they travel to Penn High School, Indiana to compete at districts, the tournament that qualifies students to the national tournament. If a competitor places in the top two, they advance to the NSDA tournament in June 2024 which takes place in Des Moines, IA. 

The weekend after districts, the team will compete at the state tournament at Avon High School.