With top speaker awards and several quarter- and semi-finalists, the high school speech and debate students brought home incredible results after competing for three days at Blue Key Speech and Debate Tournament. They departed on Thursday, October 31 after receiving their highly-anticipated “Boo Bags,” a goodie bag containing candy and snacks put together by parents to make up for missing Halloween.

The public forum teams advanced to various elimination rounds, with juniors Zayn Charania and Aaron Pinto making it to Double-Octafinals, juniors Maya Jos and Alfred Jino advancing to Triple-Octafinals and freshman Dhava Rajamanikandan and junior Aniket Shukla getting to Octafinals. 

They weren’t the only debate teams who made it past preliminary rounds, however. Freshman Lincoln-Douglas debater Conan Matos advanced to Octofinals and sophomores Bennett Ortiz and Archith Venkat made it to semifinals in Congressional Debate. The public forum debaters also secured the top 3 speaker awards, with juniors Aaron Pinto and Zayn Charania and sophomore Emanuel Sasson getting first, second and third, respectively. 

Acquiring a unique gator plaque, junior Lindsay Brasner won second place in Informative Speaking. Sophomore Arisa Porter also advanced to Semifinals in Original Oratory and freshman Tanush Sajja made it to quarterfinals in both Original Oratory and Impromptu Speaking. Also in Impromptu, sophomore Shreyas Bagel also advanced to quarterfinals. Lastly, freshman Justin Newberg made it to semifinals in Humorous Interpretation.

The team returned home late Sunday night with various awards, and will continue to prepare for upcoming tournaments where they hope to do even better. 

_{This weekend, Mr. Joele Denis, Mr. Spencer Orlowski, Mr. Stephen Scopa and Mr. Thadeus Smith came along to Gainesville to coach the team. (Photo/Mr. Joele Denis)}

_{Those who don’t make it to finals have the honor of receiving an emblem of recognition with the name of their event, the signature of the director, and how far they advanced in the competition. (Photo/Joele Denis)}