The Hillsdale College Debate Team traveled to Illinois state this past weekend for their fourth tournament of the fall.
On the first day of competition, in the Open division, T.J. Wilson and Russel Breaux in Novice division broke to the semi finals and Frank Vitale was a finalist in the JV division.
The second day of competition was just as successful. In the Open division, T.J. Wilson made it to the octafinals, and placed 5th for the Speaker Award. Olivia Ols won the JV division.
Coach Matthew Doggett said that while the team is doing well, he hopes to see further improvement this season.
“The fear that you always have as a coach in this particular situation is these last two tournaments we’ve had a lot of success,” Doggett said. “Everybody could go ‘Oh we’re good and we don’t need to do any more work.’ But our big tournaments are in the spring.”
Hillsdale College Junior and Debate Team Manager, Jadon Buzzard said that the tournament was a step in the right direction for the team who will have two more competitions before the end of the semester.
“The season has been going really well thus far. I think we see a really solid improvement level in the people that we are bringing in,” Buzzard said, “We had the most amount of people join the debate team this year than we have ever had before.”
Debate Club meetings are held every Monday and Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Debate Lounge, located right across from the Old Snack Bar. New members are always welcome.
“You have to dedicate yourself and try to understand how it all works and if you end up liking it, then it is definitely possible to do very well,” Buzzard said, “Even if you have never had any experience before.”