The Needham Speech and Debate Team closed out the regular season with a 3rd palace finish at the Speech/Congress Tournament in Walpole and 5th place finish in debate at Boston Latin March 28, 29 and April 5 2025.
Senior Mia Maffeo won glitter in three different events, including the state championship in play reading. She and partner senior Anika Ray ranked third overall in duo. Maffeo and Ray along with seniors Ben Fogler, Anika Ray, Simon Shoemaker, and Emma Zhang were named state reserve champions in multiple. Senior Talia Musmon earned the reserve championship in poetry and third place in prose reading. Fogler earned the reserve championship in dramatic performance. Zhang also was also on stage in a second event, prose, finishing in seventh place.
Sophomores Casey Canzano and Spencer Seidel were 5th in varsity and novice Lincoln-Douglas Debate each reaching the elite eight in their events. This was paralleled by ninth grader Ethan Bright in novice LD and senior Jereny Tsung in novice and varsity Lincoln Douglas ranking ninth overall. Seidel was also the fourth place speaker overall
Senior Emily Flanagan was sixth in impromptu speaking while senior Gabe Pressman was seventh in Congressional Debate, also serving as presiding officer. Ananya Sharma was seventh in programmed oral interp. Shoemaker was an honorable mention in prose reading. Ninth grader Frederick Goodman, who missed advancing on speaker points in novice LD, ranking 17th overall.
Other strong performances included children’s literature readers sophomores Zoe Berg and Vanezah Khan, declamation specialists sophomores Madeleine Clark and Myles Yountz along with ninth graders Elizabeth Napodensky and Nivina Sujit.In oratory, sophomore Maggie Sharrard, and Ayla-Ryann Thompson and senior Shoemaker, excelled. In Duo, the teams of Berg and Clark and also Flanagan and Sharrard added ‘glittery’ sweepstakes points for Needham. Dramatic Performing senior Mary Scott Dunn. and sophomore Yountz won accolades in those roles. Double-entered sophomore Sienna Tow recited truth to her story in both prose and poetry while sophomore Maddy Weirup and ninth grader Valentina Welch did the same in prose and poetry in turn.
In debate, the public forum debate partnerships of ninth graders Ved Desai and Noah Siegel and Beatrice Albert and Claire Shields excelled any limits AI may have placed upon them. Varsity LD debaters juniors Lulu Wang, and Matias Welch, novice LD Debater Oliver Scheper and senior Big Questions debater Julia Gendin (who was both intelligent and creative, as the resolution demanded).
Judges for Needham included parents Kara Albert, Alan Canzano, Matt Flanagan and Eric Tsung senior members Lily Alllen and Selene Solari-Cis and juniors Dan Golmohammadi, and Kevin Xu, friend of the program Gabby Knight, coaches Tyler Bates, Jackson Carr, Greg Cunningham, Matt Friosi, Joanna Goldenberg, Adam Nir, and PJ Wexler.
Wexler singled out the highly adept Needham speech and debate senior class for rocketing through a highly accomplished saga that will take ‘rockets’ to match, while observing the future's so bright, one has to wear shades.”
The Team will next attend nationals in Chicago and Des Moines in May and June. Twenty-three Needham student are qualified.
