Clear Lake High School - September 4-5
All WSD teams
This past weekend, Clear Brook Speech and Debate roared into the new season close to home at Clear Lake High School, in pursuit of TFA State Qualifications! World Schools Debate teams went to battle with teams from Clear Springs and Elkins regarding the correct form of funding in democratic elections as well as whether to allow the romanticization of toxic relationships in fictional media. After two days, two of the three teams fought their way to finals and closed out for a Clear Brook 1st and 2nd place finish! The team that placed first was comprised of Jackson Barnett, Hania Khan, Jaza Sheikh, and Alaina Van, who earned 6 TFA state points each. The second place team consisted of Lydia Hartless, Zaahid Mansoor, and Tay Vo, who received 4 state points each. On the speech side, Wolverines showcased their creative talent with Sara Sijo and Sophia Merchant breaking to finals in Dramatic Interpretation, with Sara placing 1st and Sophia placing 4th! This puts them at 6 and 2 TFA points respectively. In addition, first-time Informative speakers Amberly Huynh and Ricki Fort also made their way to finals, with Amberly placing 4th and Ricki placing 5th, putting them at 2 and 1 state points respectively! This puts Brook's state point total at 47 for this season so far - after only one tournament! Furthermore, Zaahid Mansoor also broke to semifinals in Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking but missed the final round by only three ranks. All in all, Wolverine Speech and Debate had a great start to the year and look forward to a wonderful showing in three weeks at the Memorial/Spring Woods Swing, and a memorable season overall!
Memorial/Spring Woods Swing - September 25-26
Finalists!
Clear Brook speakers continued their run of great form this past weekend at the Memorial/Spring Woods Swing! Competitors took part in two tournaments in one weekend - one on Friday (Mustang), and one on Saturday (Tiger). The creative section of Brook speakers showed their talent and ingenuity by fighting their way to finals and earning state points. In particular, Sara Sijo took home finalist finishes in Dramatic Interpretation on both sides of the swing, placing 3rd on the Mustang side and 1st on the Tiger side overall! The 9 points that came from these wins catapulted her TFA state point total to 15, meaning Clear Brook has its first TFA State qualifier! Sara's fellow DI competitor Sophia Merchant also made her way to finals on the Tiger side of the swing, placing 4th to add 2 state points to her current total of 2. This puts her at 4 points for the season! In addition, Surabhi Kashyap placed 4th in Informative Speaking finals on the Mustang side and 7th on the Tiger side, bringing her total to 3 TFA state points for the season! Lydia Hartless also followed suit with a 7th place finish on the Tiger side, only just missing out on state points. A number of speakers also made it to the semifinals of their respective events. Amberly Huynh and Advika Sharma did so in Informative on the Tiger side, only missing finals by 2 ranks, and they were joined by Alishba Khan in Original Oratory on the same day, who missed finals by 4 ranks. Zaahid Mansoor also earned a cumulative rank of 5 in his two preliminary rounds, where he unfortunately missed out on finals by only 1 rank. Overall, Clear Brook Speech and Debate walked away from this tournament with 16 TFA state points (putting the total for the season at 61), a state qualifier, and numerous finalists and semifinalists, and are excited to return to competition in a week at the Bellaire High School tournament!
Bellaire High School - October 2-3
Finalists!
Clear Brook speakers hit the road once again this past weekend, this time attending the Bellaire Forensic Tournament. Speakers took part in various events including Poetry, Original Oratory, Extemporaneous Speaking, and Dramatic Interpretation. It was in this latter event that Brook took home the biggest win of the night: Sophia Merchant, after placing 1st three straight times in her preliminary rounds, finished in the 1st place spot in DI finals! This granted her 6 TFA points, placing her running total for the season at 10 points - just 4 away from state qualification! Brook also had a finalist in each division of extemp; Lydia Hartless placed 5th in Domestic Extemp while Abhimanyu Kommireddy placed 6th in Foreign Extemp! This puts Lydia at 2 state points for DX and 4 state points in World Schools Debate, while Abhi currently stands at 1 point in FX for the season. Finally, the future of Wolverine Speech was represented admirably by Zoya Charania and Sophia Rollins, who both took their first steps into the world of Novice Extemp. Overall, Clear Brook Speech and Debate now has a total of 70 TFA state points and 1 state qualifier (with more waiting in the wings), and look forward to recharging over the fall break before continuing their great form at Tompkins High School in two weeks!
