The Hillsdale College debate team won awards in both Lincoln Douglas and parliamentary debate competitions this past weekend. The tournaments, which are online due to COVID-19, were hosted by Bowling Green State University in Ohio and Ithaca College in New York, respectively.
Matthew Doggett, assistant professor of rhetoric and director of debate, said the success this past weekend is a continuation of successes this academic year.
“We did really well in the fall semester. I think we had three tournaments that we won as a team,” Doggett said. “We won at the largest non-national tournament and had a lot of people place. And then this past weekend everybody but about three people won some type of award, so it’s been a pretty cool year.”
Senior T.J. Wilson won first place in open Lincoln Douglas and first place speaker at the tournament hosted by Ithaca College. Wilson said out of the 17 individuals competing in open Lincoln Douglas, four of them were from Hillsdale, with three of the Hillsdale students making it to the elimination rounds.
“For me, the overarching favorite part of the weekend is that there were a lot of really close rounds, and that I was able to luckily win them all,” Wilson said. “I think my favorite moment was having three different people from Hillsdale advance to elimination rounds, so we had the opportunity to have won first and second place. Unfortunately, two of them lost in split decisions, which was really sad, but I got to avenge them.”
Senior Erin Reichard, along with her partner, junior Tavio Pela, won parliamentary debate at the Bowling Green tournament.
“I think one of the best parts for me this tournament was that Tavio and I did a lot of practicing,” Reichard said. “With parliamentary debate you go in and have 15 minutes to prepare a case, so we did a lot of prepping and I think it really paid off this tournament. We were able to go into rounds with great cases that we had worked on with sources we had previously researched and it was very rewarding.”