The Upper School Debate Team took first place in the Hoosier Heartland District team sweepstakes at the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) District Finals last weekend at Southport High School. As a team, Park Tudor debaters went a combined 24-11 and no debater was below .500 on win-loss. This was an impressive outcome for the team; Park Tudor had not placed in the top three schools at NSDA Districts in decades.  

Debaters at NSDA Districts compete to be one of two debaters in the District and one of eight in the state of Indiana to compete at the NSDA National Tournament in Phoenix, AZ this June. For the first time ever, Park Tudor qualified multiple debaters for Nationals. Five students punched their ticket to go to this big dance: Aditi Dey in Lincoln-Douglas (LD), Alex Lu & Kaden Xu in Public Forum (PF), and Emily Wang & Allison Xu in Policy Debate (PD). Congratulations to these debaters who will represent Park Tudor and Indiana at Nationals.

Congratulations also to Hanna Warren, who made it to the semifinals in LD, Kaitlyn Park & Riti Tandra who made it to the semifinals in PF, and Sanjana Adig who made it to the quarterfinals in LD. These debaters came within a heartbeat of qualifying and secured alternate spots for Nationals with a combined record of 8-5. Likewise, Mischa Mallbris (LD) and Henry Navarette & Aneesh Gupta (PF) went 4-4 in their respective events. Lincoln-Douglas debaters argued whether justice requires open borders for human migration and public forum teams debated if the US government should increase its diplomatic presence in West Asia.

The debate team wraps up its season next weekend at the Indiana State Debate Tournament at Marian University. Good Luck debaters!