After a long and restful winter break, Barstow’s debate team returns for the second semester. They competed online at the Westside Warrior Invitational, hosted by Omaha Westside High School. The team ended up enjoying the tournament, with one team making it to quarter finals, and several students placing in the top 12 individually.
Team Paranjay Sharma (‘24) and Mahek Vora (‘25) went 3-2, advancing all the way to the quarter-finals, before dropping to Montgomery Bell. Teams Tyler Bauman (‘25) and Jayden Sampat (‘24), Kimberly Nguyen (‘23) and Sri Pattabiraman (‘24), and Haddie Schedler (‘25) and Ava Levin (‘24), all going 2-3, and Matthew Gill (‘24) and Kevin Gill (‘25) going 1-4.
Despite only one team making it to elimination rounds, the squad represented four of the top 12 individual speaker awards, with Bauman, Sharma, Sampat, and Vora receiving 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th, respectively.
While overall experiences at the tournament vary, most students agree they learned a lot. “It was the most painful experience ever,” according to Schedler, but “I learned a lot about non-conventional arguments and how to respond to them.” Similarly, Bauman labels this tournament as “one of the goofiest experiences ever, mainly because I never expected to win a round with a tarot reading, but here we are.”
The team has two tournaments left, one on the first weekend of February in Las Vegas, and one in Iowa City at the end of February. While you probably can’t travel along with them, they’d love the support!
