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The Needham Speech and Debate Team’s 2015-16 season rocketed to a close in Salt Lake City and Sacramento. Needham finished in the top five debate schools out of 517 attending at the Sacramento event. At the two national tournaments, Needham students excelled.
At the Grand National Tournament in Sacramento, Needham juniors Elizabeth Lively and Sarah Rosenberg reached the quarterfinal , out of over two hundred plus Lincoln-Douglas debaters. Rosenberg dropped to the eventual tournament champion from Hawken from Cleveland, Lively to South Lakes High School in northern Virginia. Senior Carmela Dobrusin and junior Aman Jha finished in the top twenty-five in Oral Interpretation of Literature and Congressional Debate in turn. For Dobrusin, it is the second time in her career that she reached elimination rounds at nationals. Contributing strongly to the team’s overall performance were junior Ariana Orozco in Lincoln-Douglas, and original oratory junior Grace Ward (both of whom reached elimination rounds in 2016), Congressional Debater Senior Shelton Daal, and extemporaneous speaker junior Jackson Segal. Kate Ward, Sanjeev Jha, and Greg Cunningham worked with Needham students throughout the weekend.
At the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Salt Lake City, the junior team of Lively and Sofia Kurd finished in the top ten of World Style Debate, as part of Team New England. Rosenberg finished in the top twenty of Lincoln-Douglas Debaters. Junior Audrey Pratt performed in Informative Speaking and reached elimination rounds in both Prose and Storytelling, while Orozco performed ably in Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Lively, Kurd, Rosenberg, and Orozco all entered impromptu speaking as well, with Orozco adding to her efforts in Extemporaneous Debate. Needham High Alum Miranda Knox ’14 and Betsy Pratt worked with the Needham students throughout the week.
