The College Debate Team hosted the 26th annual Jack Lynch Debate Tournament on November 3rd. There were nearly 100 students from 14 colleges and universities competing at the tournament from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

There were nearly 60 debaters competing in debate, with divisions of Lincoln Douglas policy debate as well as IPDA (public debate). In addition, several dozen students competed in Individual Speech events (IE) such as Poetry, Extemporaneous Speaking and After Dinner Speaking.

In addition to hosting the tournament, The St. Anselm College team competed and ended up doing very well. In IPDA debate, Jacob Halterman (’21) reached the quarterfinals (top 8) and Alexandros Pandazis (’19) reached the semifinals (final four).

The tournament was won by the University of the Cumberlands (Kentucky) against Bowling Green State University (Ohio) in the final round. Our LD policy debate team took home two top speaker awards. Drew Collins (’19) was 5th place speaker and Cassy Moran (’19) was 4th place speaker.

The LD tournament was won by John Carrol University (Ohio) against Capital University (Ohio) in the final round. In speech events, Alexandros Pandazis finished 2nd place in impromptu speaking.  

The team received a major boost from many alumni who came back to campus to help with the judging for the tournament – Kaitlin Morel (‘18), Lily-Gre Hitchen (‘18), Katie Muzzy (‘15), Richard Bergeron (‘13), Timothy Vaughan (‘11), Courtney Gray Tanner (‘11), Michael Pirrello (‘07), Jessica Foster Correia (’06), and Jared Correia (’00).  

Several of the more experienced members of the team, Erica Davis (‘20), William Bearce (‘19) and Gregory Valcourt (‘19), helped with judging the IPDA debate, which is the one form of debate that permits student judges. Also, the team is especially grateful to Prof. Philip Pajakowski (History) and Prof. Beth Salerno (History) who both came to judge for the day. The tournament was so large that every single judge was needed. The team wishes to extend thanks to all of the judges who volunteered.

The team also presented a public debate at NHIOP this past week on the MeToo movement. Next up the team is preparing for its last event of the season, a tournament at Otterbein University in Columbus, Ohio at the beginning of December, where students will compete in both LD and IPDA debate.

Next semester, the team will resume its travel schedule with tournaments at Suffolk University, Ithaca College, Hillsdale College and John Carroll University, as well as a public debate as part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. series of events on campus.

Those interested in joining the team, should contact the coach, David Trumble.