On Friday, November 14 and Saturday, November 15, the STEM high school Speech and Debate team competed in its second varsity tournament of the year: the Mile High Tournament held at East HS.  Over 1,000 students entered over 500 rounds of competition, including all of the most competitive schools in Colorado.  STEM brought 14 students to the nearly 12-hour tournament.  A special thanks to our volunteer judges; Jane Kim, Dale Taylor, Anddrew Hoelsken, and Heather Dillon.

This tournament was possibly the most competitive of the year given the numbers.  Some highlights:

• Alex Gerali(US Extemporaneous Speech) and Aidric Peterson (Informative Speaking) both placed first in one of their respective rounds of six.
•      Darshan Satish Kumerand Emmett Cumbler both won 2 of their 3 rounds of varsity Lincoln Douglas Debate, and Ash Ambalavanan won 2 of her 3 rounds of novice Lincoln Douglas Debate.
•      Aaron Dolgonoswon 2d place out of 93 entries in varsity Lincoln Douglas Debate, going undefeated throughout the tournament (second place was determined based on opponent win-loss record, something out of his control; a run-off with the first place finisher wasn’t possible).

Like Emmett at the Cherry Creek Classic two weeks ago, Aaron defeated a senior who was one of the top Colorado debaters at nationals last year.  Aaron’s performance today and Emmett’s performance at Cherry Creek HS two weeks ago mean that a STEM sophomore has medaled and gone undefeated in the most competitive event at both of the initial two top Colorado speech and debate tournaments of the year, a feat that puts every school on notice that STEM is now among Colorado’s elite debate programs.

Speech and Debate’s next tournament will be in one week at Eaglecrest HS. 

-Coach Griffin