State Finals Results
158 debaters from 28 schools competed in this year's State Finals at Wilton High School. Thanks to coach Allison Hujar, the Wilton team and Wilton High School for hosting us for the fourth consecutive year.
In a spirited Varsity final round that was much closer than the 4-1 decision suggests, the Darien team of Reed Morgan and Cameron Wong on Negative won the Connecticut Debate Association State Championship over the Joel Barlow team of Nicolo Marzaro and Brendan Coppinger. This was Darien's first time in this final round, but Joel Barlow was appearing for the third consecutive year and the fifth time in six years.
In the Novice division, the Pomperaug team of O'Sullivan and Sledzieski won top honors.
The topic was, Resolved: NAFTA should be expanded to permit the free movement of labor. Results during the day were very even, with almost equal Affirmative and Negative wins in each round.
You may view or download the complete March 23 Results, as well as the resolution package.
If you are missing ballots, please contact me, and we will see if we can find them.
If you have any questions or comments, please email us: CDA Tournaments.
Other Debate Activities
Pomperaug Places Second at Osterweis
The Pomperaug team of Marlee Breakstone and Diya Nag placed second at the Yale Osterweis parliamentary style debate tournament held in New Haven on April 7. They defeated the Joel Barlow team of Lewson and Marzaro in the semifinals, losing to the Choate team of Agrawal and Warner in the final round.
CDA teams made up three of the four semifinalist, with the Ridgefield team of Ballard and Blum joining the Pomperaug and Joel Barlow teams already mentioned. Four additional CDA teams made the top ten: Gyurco and Shaw from Simsbury in fifth place, Hiestand and Jenson from Wilton in sixth place, Schaefer and Wallace from Wilton in seventh place, and Guo and Cohen from Daniel Hand in ninth place.
CDA debaters also took six of the top ten individual speaker positions: Nicolo Marzaro of Joel Barlow second place; Ben Lewson of Joel Barlow fourth place; Allie Schaefer of Wilton fifth place; Cathy Guo of Daniel Hand sixth place, Kevin Gyurco of Simsbury ninth place; and Arthur Wilkins of Daniel hand tenth place.
More information can be found at the Osterweis web site.
Barlow Debater Wins World Title
Joel Barlow debater Nicolo Marzaro, who won the first place speaker trophy at state finals, has won the first place impromptu speaking award at the 2013 World Individual Debate and Public Speaking Championship Tournament in Durban, South Africa. Nicolo Marzaro also placed seventh overall in the week long competition hosted at Clifton School.
Nicolo qualified for the tournament through his performance earlier in the year at a tournament sponsored by Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor. A number of photos can be found here, and a video of the winning speech.
Last updated April 19, 2013.