The 91探花 Speech and Debate teams continue to shine in competitions, which are taking place virtually. Over Memorial Day weekend, students participated in the rescheduled Massachusetts Speech and Debate League (MSDL) State Championship Tournament that featured 30 schools and nearly 500 students competing in live, online speech and debate events. Tyler Tjan 鈥22 was State Champion in Extemporaneous Speaking and Emily Hong 鈥21 was State Champion in Radio Broadcasting. Miranda Paiz 鈥21 and Caitlin Waugh 鈥20 earned second place in Duo Interpretation, Abby Buonato 鈥22 earned second place in Play Reading, and Nyla Sams 鈥20 earned third place in Informative Speaking.
鈥淭his was the first-of-its-kind competition within this venue, and 91探花 students rose to the occasion with outstanding performances that resulted in the capturing of the overall Third Sweepstakes Award,鈥 said Matthew Brandstetter, faculty speech and debate coach.
Earlier in the month, speech students joined nearly 700 other competitors from 188 schools in 35 states for the first annual Making Art While Socially Quarantined (MASQ) Tournament. Students videotaped and uploaded their speeches ahead of time, which were then reviewed by nationally acclaimed judges over a five-day period. Sams earned fifth place in Informative Speaking and Paiz was a quarterfinalist in Prose Interpretation and Poetry Interpretation.
In mid-June, previously qualified students will compete in the national, online National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) tournament: Sams, Paiz, Tjan, Jack Burton 鈥22, Jana Amin 鈥21, Timothy Colledge 鈥21, and Ben Simpson 鈥21.聽
