“State is always a little bit unpredictable,” said captain and senior Caroline Pellegrin. “Just because you’ve been doing super well the entire season, doesn’t mean it’s going to great at State. So there’s always that element of surprise and kind of twist.”
Pellegrin, along with fellow senior captain Scott Stewart, seniors Payton Kinkead, Cole Dennis, Taylor Bye; juniors Will Anema, Alex Wilson, Alex Fedje-Johnson, Eric Bejarano, Tony Yan, sophomores Madeleine Debele, Kenny Kiratli, Sara Mageli, Deity Sullivan-Fonts, Elie Laddusaw and Meena Morar all competed in the 2014 State Debate Tournament at South St. Paul High School on Friday Dec. 5, and also the last one of the Classical Debate season.
Each JV and Varsity team is guaranteed five rounds and then have a chance to move to quarter-finals, semi-finals and the championship round. Novice teams have four guaranteed rounds and may move onto octo-finals, quarter-finals, semi-finals and championships as well.
In the novice division, Kiratli and Debele made it through to octo-finals; and in the Varsity rounds, Pellegrin and Anema advanced to quarter-finals.
All in all, Pellegrin observes, not only State but the whole season went well.
“I’m just really proud how we just came together and worked really hard and became this really good, cohesive new team,” said Pellegrin. “[It] was really cool to be a part of.”
-Taylor Bye