KU Debate team finishes third at J.W. Patterson Debate Tournament
LAWRENCE — KU Debate reached the semifinals of the second major national tournament of the season, the J.W. Patterson Debates hosted by the University of Kentucky. Kentucky hosted 127 of the top teams in the country at Sept. 26-29 event, and seven teams from the University of Kansas competed.
Rose Larson, Milwaukee, and Luna Schultz, Houston, reached the semifinals, while three other KU teams qualified for the single-elimination rounds. Five KU students were among the top 20 individual speakers at the tournament. Emory University won the tournament, defeating the University of Michigan in the championship debate.
Larson and Schultz went an undefeated 6-0 in the preliminary rounds at the tournament and qualified for the elimination rounds as the second seed. At the two major national tournaments held so far, they have a preliminary round record of 13-1 and have been first and second seed at Northwestern University and Kentucky. In their six preliminary debates, they defeated Gonzaga University, Georgetown University, Northwestern University, George Mason University, Harvard University and the University of Michigan team that had won the Northwestern tournament.
In the elimination rounds they beat Michigan State University in the round of 32, California State University, Long Beach, in the octafinals, and the University of Kentucky in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals they had a rematch with the University of Michigan, and this time Michigan was victorious on a 2-1 split decision. The KU pair also won individual speaker awards as Larson was the fifth-place individual speaker and Schultz was the seventh-place speaker.
The KU team of juniors Brooklynn Hato, Overland Park, and A.J. Persinger, Lawrence, also went 6-0 in the preliminary rounds and qualified for the elimination rounds as the third seed. In the preliminary rounds they won debates over the U.S. Naval Academy, Wake Forest University, George Mason University, Emory University, the University of Kentucky and Michigan State University. They were upset in the first single-elimination round on a 2-1 split decision by a team from Emory University. Both won individual speaker awards as Hato was the 12th-place speaker and Persinger the 14th-place speaker.
The KU pair of junior Owen Williams, Lee’s Summit, Missouri, and senior Zach Willingham, Topeka, finished in the top 16 at the tournament. They qualified for the elimination rounds as the 20th seed with a 4-2 record in the preliminary debates. The notched wins over teams from the University of Michigan, Missouri State University, the University of Texas, Dallas, and the University of California, Berkeley. Their losses were to the defending national champions from Binghamton and the Emory team that won the Kentucky tournament. In the first elimination round they upset the higher-seeded team from the University of Texas to advance to the round of 16 where they lost a 2-1 split decision to the University of Iowa. Willingham was the 17th individual speaker at the tournament.
The KU team of freshman Kate’Lynn Shaw, Chicago, and junior Nargis Suleman, Leawood, made their season debut, and they went 4-2 in the preliminary rounds and qualified for the elimination rounds as the 22nd seed. They started slowly with losses to Missouri State University and Dartmouth College but then found their rhythm with wins over the University of Georgia, another Dartmouth team, the top-10 ranked team in the country from California State University, Long Beach, and Emory University. In the single elimination rounds they were knocked out of the tournament by the University of Michigan.
Three other KU pairs went 4-2 in the preliminary rounds. The KU teams of sophomore Claire Ain, Overland Park, with freshman Max Ulven, St. Paul, Minnesota; freshman Asra June, Lenexa, with sophomore Nate Boyle, St. Louis; and sophomore Carson Bath, Topeka, with junior Sean McConnell, Topeka, all had sufficient wins to qualify for the elimination rounds but finished just out of the top 32 teams on speaker points.
Scott Harris, the David B. Pittaway Director of KU Debate, said, “We are so grateful to our alumni, the Student Senate, the Department of Communication Studies and the College of Arts & Sciences who supply the resources that allow us to maintain KU’s stature as one of the preeminent debate programs in the country.”