Manhattan High debate had immense success in their most recent meet in Buhler on Saturday.
“One thing about this tournament is that Manhattan has not had this much success at a tournament individually in a long time,” senior Emron Streetman said. “That’s because usually, even if we can win the Open and the Novice divisions, it’s really tough to win the DCI or the Varsity division. But here at Buhler, we won not only Novice and Open but also Varsity and Sweepstakes, which means that overall, not only do we have the best teams in every division, but we were rated the best team, best school there.”
Debate has come out strong in tournaments all season long.
“I think a lot of our experienced team is more motivated this year, and we have a very close team culture,” Harvey said.
Part of the team’s increase in success is due to their second-year debate coach William Soper.
“Soper is a lot more focused on debate than [Mac] Phrommany,” Harvey said. “So he focuses more on helping the team out, like in a technical sense. He’ll help us cut a lot of arguments and things before the tournament and understand debate, like in a technical sense, whereas Phrommany was more just like, speak pretty, more of a morale, but not so like technical.”
The next event coming up for the MHS debate team is their home tournament they host each year.
“We have about 55 teams across both the Open and the Novice divisions, which is a pretty, fairly sizable turnout,” Streetman said.
MHS Debaters don’t actually compete at their own home meets.
“Unlike in other sports like cross country or track, there is a bias imposed by the judges, because it’s all adjudicated by community members,” Streetman said. “Being the home team there, of course, gives one side a big advantage.”
Although MHS debaters won’t actually take the podium, hosting a tournament provides a boost to their program.
“It gives us a lot of money for the team, and it also allows us to interact with a lot of the other competitors and provide another forum to kind of give back to the debate community by allowing them to compete at our meet, like we have been competing at their meets throughout the season,” Streetman said.
