The Hillsdale Debate team travelled to Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. on Oct. 6 and 7, where they competed in the Lafayette Ocho, winning the Overall Sweeps, as well as several individual awards.
“The team did really well, showing a marked improvement from our last performance at Western Kentucky University,” Junior Bryan Brooks said.
The tournament was a contest of three schools, Brooks said. Hillsdale competed with two other schools who are also in the midst of rebuilding, Marshall University, and St. Anselm’s College. Hillsdale won the tournament by one point.
The team received other awards in the individual categories at the two day tournament. Freshman Kevin Ambrose went to the semi-finals in novice, and Brooks made it to the quarterfinals the first day and semi-finals the second day. Brooks also received an award for overall speech performance on the first day.
“I dropped down in a two-to-one decision, but the judges said I was the best round they had seen, so that was encouraging,” junior Lauren Holt said. “And we had a lot of fun. We did awesome, considering we are a very little and inexperienced team.”
Brooks said the team is improving and pointed to Ambroses’ semi-final performance as a highlight of the competition. The Lafayette tournament was only his third.
“This improvement is showing that we are making progress toward recapturing the competitive excellence that we have enjoyed in the past couple of years,” Brooks said.
The team is still inexperienced and small, Brooks and Holt both said, but they are improving and anticipating their upcoming competitions to succeed even more.
The debate team will travel next to Central Missouri University this weekend.
