Arguably the Best
Two students medal at State Debate
Kristen Ferrara
Lauren Slusher and Parker Robbins medaled as Octa Finalists at the State UIL Cross Examination Tournament in Austin, TX on March 18th and 19th.
Slusher said, “We only did one debate in the Octafinals, but since we were in the lower part of the bracket we were debating a prominent team. I realized that I would rather lose a million debates like that than win one against a team that doesn’t know what they’re doing.”
Slusher and Robbins felt confident as they entered the tournament because their case was extremely strong and they were mentally prepared. .
“We built our Affirmative by trying to look at the big picture. We found out what we believed to be the inherent problem and built our case so that the issue was resolved, rather than focusing on particular harms. This appealed to a lot of policy judges,” said Slusher.
They competed against 64 other teams in the 4A category, among these Hudson’s own Tarek Zaher and Matthew Mitchell.
When asked about his and Zaher’s performance, Mitchell said, “I think we did great. We got a little unlucky with the kinds of judges we got, but overall I think we performed very well.” He added, “In debate, it’s obviously a public speaking competition, but in the realm of debate there are specific things that you would never find in an actual speech to the public such as spreading, which is talking as fast as you possibly can to get information out there, or kritiks, which shift the philosophical frame of the debate to something completely unrelated. It’s called playing the ‘game’ of debate, which we don’t prefer to do.”
Slusher and Robbins had much better luck that day, meeting a judge named Rachel who not only fairly observed the debate but was willing to offer the pair advice afterward.
Slusher said, “After Parker and I finished, we knew we had won the debate. We ran analytical arguments and went past the surface of an evidence card to understand what it actually meant. We did exactly what the judge told us to do.”
Teachers Mr. Largent and Mrs. Meisel accompanied the team on the trip and coached the debaters during and prior to the event.
Mitchell said, “I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to both Mrs. Meisel and Mr. Largent for all the hard work they put in everyday to help us get to state, to motivate us to do our best, and to physically transport us to state.”
The teachers were very satisfied with the performances of the debaters and look forward to next year.
Mrs. Meisel said, “I’m really proud of their hard work. It was a difficult topic which they attacked with purpose, and it got us far in the competition.”
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