Four teams from Manhattan High School’s debate program competed in the Kansas Flint Hills District Tournament Friday and Saturday with one team getting through the qualify for Nationals.

The team of senior Trinity Brockman and sophomore Samuel DeLong became alternates for Nationals, placing fourth. Other teams that competed at Washburn Rural High Schools were freshmen Annabelle Jung and Dayven Dodd, sophomore Abdullah Rasheed and freshman Vinny Sun, and sophomores Jackson Tanner and Gilberto Bonilla. 

At this point in the season, teams are working hard to be able to qualify. This has been a goal for some since the beginning. 

“I really want to qualify in policy this year,” DeLong said. “I went to camp and I put in the work so I feel like this would be a great payoff to be able to qualify for NATS [Nationals] in policy.”

Brockman and DeLong, a team that has done exceptionally well this debate season, became first alternates for Nationals, placing fourth.This has already helped them achieve a goal they set. 

“We have a newspaper that we both sign that says goal for 2019 season is to qualify for NATS,” DeLong said, “so we are trying to make it on that promise.”

The team of freshmen Jung and Dodd made it to Round 5; however not they did not place. Rasheed and Sun, along with Tanner and Gilberto, made it to Round 3. 

This tournament, Jung and Dodd debated together, which happened to be their first time debating with each other as well as with some new affirmative cases, which is a file that goes with the topic’s resolution of the year, saying that a plan should go through.

“I was pretty nervous going in as Dayven and I had never debated together and we were using an aff [affirmative] we had modified the day before,” Jung said.

However, they “ended up having a very enjoyable experience,” Jung said.

“I had a lot of fun and learned so much from the more experienced teams,” Dodd said.

Novice State will also be occurring along with Kansas Debate Classic and Debate Coach Invitational on Jan. 10-11, 2020. Two speaker and Four Speaker State will be on Jan. 17-18, 2020.