Rarely does a tournament host speech and debate together, but that was the case at the Hoosier Holiday Classic Invitational at Indiana University.

The tournament, which included nine schools and over 150 students, was held on December 15, and included both varsity and novice divisions. CHS had champions in both speech and debate and placed second as a team.

In varsity public forum debate the team of Christian O'Brien and Salman Lakhani was the tournament champion, coming in ahead of the second place team of Nathan Burris and Tyler Colvin. Finishing fourth was the team of Savannah Tipton and Matt Eggers.

In varsity Congress Taryn Trusty placed fourth, and the varsity policy team of Kaley Brown and Emily Percifield finished fourth as well.

Finally, varsity Lincoln/Douglas debater Abby Burke finished in second.

In novice debate the policy debate team of Tim Vincent and Joel Peterson, who were undefeated, won the tournament championship.

"Our kids did really well against some of the state's best debate teams. Because of the way they combined speech and debate points there's no way to know exactly how we did against other debate teams but we were definitely competitive," said Coach Chris Lowery.

In varsity speech Layla Mooradian was the tournament champion in declamation, and Eric Zhong won broadcasting. Zhong also placed fifth in impromptu speaking. Mooradian was also third in original oratory, finishing behind teammate Jennifer Kattalia who was second. Sharon Coleman finished in seventh in oratory.

In varsity international extemporaneous speaking Spencer Gordon was second, followed by Andrew Caratini in fifth place.

In humor Kaylee Oates placed third, and in drama Aliyah Caraballo and Kasey O'Keefe tied for sixth place. Caraballo and her partner Danny Vincent placed fifth in memorized duo.

Varsity broadcasters Galen Wong and Robert St. Pierre were second and third, respectively, and Wong also finished fourth in declamation. Matt Murfitt was sixth in US extemporaneous speaking, and Jake Williger was seventh in original performance.

In novice speech Eric Richardson was the tournament champion in broadcasting and teammate Sam Gordon finished in third. Richardson also placed fourth in novice impromptu.

Munster won the top team award, Chesterton was second and Plymouth was third. The team will resume competition this weekend with speech sending teams to Ben Davis and Concord and debate sending its entire squad to Ben Davis.

Posted 1/7/2013