Solon Speech and Debate qualifies 11 students to Nationals

Solon’s Speech and Debate team competed in the last in-district tournament of the season and emerged victorious once again.  In a combination of the Congress National Qualifying tournament at Gilmour High School on February 11 and the National Qualifying tournament of the North Coast District at St. Ignatius High School on February 17-18, Solon qualified a total of 11 competitors to the national tournament in Indianapolis on June 10-15.  This is one more competitor than Solon qualified last year! 

As a team, Solon won three sweepstakes awards: top Individual Event+Debate ranks, top ranks overall, and most round of Individual Events competed in.

The following individuals qualified to the national tournament:

United States Extemporaneous Speaking

Tiffany Li

International Extemporaneous Speaking

Eric Wang

2nd alternate | Ojas Sathe

Original Oratory

Liz Eder

1st alternate | Oliver Chen

Dramatic Interpretation

Kathy Zhang

London Christian

Nisha Malhotra

Humorous Interpretation

Meghan Pavrithran

Duo Interpretation

Annie Xin and Priyanka Pai

2nd alternate | Zachary Schwartz and Vibhu Krishna

2-Person Policy Debate

1st alternate | Michael Chen and Ayush Gupta

Congressional Debate

William Qu

John Zeng

A huge congratulations to all of these aspiring and achieving speakers and debaters!  This is no small feat and nothing less than sheer motivation and hard work could explain this success.  Having this many qualifiers speaks volumes about the leadership that our coaches, Jennifer Moore and Dan Ceci, have shown throughout the season and the hard work and dedication they have put in as well!  The team owes them so many thanks that it would be impossible to express our appreciation through mere words.

The team looks forward to the State tournament on March 2-3 to try and finish among the top 10 teams in Ohio for the first time.