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Historic State Tournament for Debaters

3/5/2019

At the State Speech and Debate Tournament, Nick Protasiewicz '19 won the State title in Lincoln-Douglas debate, and John DeSantis '20 and Kiran Krishnamurthi '19, and Nate Mayor '19 and Sukhm Kang '20 won State titles in Public Forum debate. In addition, University School won two team awards.

Nick Protasiewicz is the first debater in Ohio history since 1982 to win the state title in LD in back-to-back years. In the finals, he prevailed on a unanimous 5-0 decision. LD Coach Mr. James Lewis '00 has taken a debater to the final round of States for 7 years in a row, winning the title 4 times.

For the first time ever, US closed out Public Forum, with the team of John DeSantis and Kiran Krishnamurthi and the team of Nate Mayor and Sukhm Kang named co-champions. US team Anish Ganesh '19 and Abraham Paik '21 were paired against and conceded to John and Kiran in the quarterfinals. The team of Sai Karnati ’20 and Daniel Yan ’21fell in the octa-finals (top 16).

In Dramatic Interpretation, Auryon Azar ‘19 advanced to the final round and won 4^th place out of 63 competitors. Three students advanced to the quarterfinals: Arthur Li ‘22 in Congressional Debate, and Arnold von Engelbrechten ‘19 and Brady Condon ’21 in International Extemporaneous Speaking.

In Lincoln-Douglas debate, all four US debaters made it out of preliminary rounds. Calvin Chesler ’19 made it to the first elimination round (the top 29), but he was paired against teammate Nick Protasiewicz. Calvin conceded and Nick advanced. Nehal Chigurupati ‘20 made it to the octa-final round (top 16), but he was paired against Nick. Nehal conceded and Nick advanced. Zach Paganini ’19 went 5-1 in preliminary rounds and was seeded second, so he earned a bye through the first elimination round. In the octa-finals, Zach lost on a 2-1, so he was in the top 16, along with Nehal.

As a team, University School won two awards: the Ohio School of Excellence in Debate Award; and 4th place, of 91 schools, in the overall Team Sweepstakes.

Congratulations to the team and coaches!

Back

- State title winners: Sukhm Kang, Kiran Krishnamurthi, Nick Protasiewicz, Nate Mayor, John DeSantis
- The US Speech and Debate Team
- Coaches James Lewis and Peter Paik

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20701 Brantley Road
Shaker Heights, Ohio 44122
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Hunting Valley, Ohio 44022
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