By JESSICA R. ALLEN

jra020@latech.edu

 

Tech’s debate team has earned its second win of the season after participating in a tournament held at University of Louisiana-Monroe Oct. 28-30.

The debate team added 11 trophies and 60 points creating a total of 23 trophies and 137 points to continue its top ranking in the International Public Debate Association organization.

Trey Gibson, director of debate and an instructor of speech, said the beginning debaters ruled this tournament.

“The novices accounted for 33 of the 60 points,” Gibson said. “[They] were 18 and 6,” Gibson said.

“Henry Shuler was number one coming out of the preliminaries with a 6-0 record.

Courtney McGuffee was second with a 5-1 record. Nick Cordaro came out with a 5-1 record.”

Gibson said the team received four first place trophies.

“Rachael Taylor and Nick Cordaro earned speaker awards in the team novice debate. They took third and fourth, respectively. Together they placed first in team debate.”

Gibson said two of his debaters moved up in the tournament.

“Kyle O’Neal bumped up to open division and John McCorkle bumped up to varsity.”

He said the debate team had three students move up to the final rounds.

“We had the top three seeds,” Gibson said.

“Louisiana Tech had three out of four semi-finalists.”

He said some students are not going to place because of this rule.

“The people are about to be punished for their God-given ability,” Gibson said.

“Nick Cordaro has been that stepping stone. He’s always that third seed.”

Gibson said Cordaro, a junior history and French major, has only one tournament left to compete in the novice rounds.

“The way eligibility works, you can stay novice for eight tournaments,” Gibson said.

“There’s an addendum to that rule. If you make it to the semi-finals in three tournaments, then you have to bump up.”

Gibson said he does not allow his debaters to compete against each other as many schools do.

“Debate is such a conflict anyway,” Gibson said.

“I don’t believe in us arguing with each other to go get that trophy.”

Richie Robinson, a member of the debate team and a freshman speech education major, said not competing against one another is a good thing.

“It’s all in good faith that we help each other,” he said.

The team earned 82 tournament points, edging out LSU Shreveport by seven points at 75. Third place went to the University of Texas at Tyler with 69.

Henry Shuler, a member of the debate team and a sophomore civil engineering major, also said this tournament was carried by the novice debaters.

“We went into the tournament without our heavy hitters,” Shuler said. “That was a little uneasy on us.”

Shuler said he was shocked at how well the team did during the tournament.

“I had to convince myself that we did that well,” he said. “We’re dominating everybody.”