KU debaters win prestigious Wake Forest tournament
LAWRENCE — The University of Kanas debate team of Rose Larson, Milwaukee, and Luna Schultz, Houston, won the 69th Franklin R. Shirley Classic Debate Tournament hosted by Wake Forest University, which took place Nov. 15-17. The KU duo defeated a team from Emory University in the championship debate.
The Wake Forest tournament is a major national tournament that is the culmination of the policy debate season for the fall semester. There were 138 teams from 44 schools competing for the championship. After seven preliminary debates, only the top 32 teams qualify for a single elimination bracket.
Larson and Schultz were 6-1 in their seven prelim debates. They began the tournament with four consecutive wins over the University of Massachusetts, the University of Houston, the University of Texas-Dallas and Georgetown University before suffering their only loss to the top-ranked team in the country from the University of Michigan. They bounced back with wins over Western Kentucky University and Harvard University. They qualified for the elimination rounds as the third seed. In the single-elimination rounds, they defeated a team from Emory University in the round of 32, advanced over another team from KU in the round of 16 and beat a team from the University of Michigan in the quarterfinals.
In the semifinals they had a rematch with the top team from the University of Michigan, and this time KU was victorious to advance to the championship debate against the second-ranked team in the country from Emory University. Kansas won the championship debate on a unanimous 3-0 decision.
As KU’s top team, Larson and Schultz have competed at five tournaments this semester and have won two of them, finished third twice and finished fifth once. They are now 27-2 in preliminary rounds and have an overall record of 46-5 on the season.
Four additional KU teams qualified for the single-elimination bracket. The team of Brooklynn Hato, Overland Park, and A.J. Persinger, Lawrence, were also 6-1 in the preliminary debates and qualified for the elimination rounds as the eighth seed. They won their round of 32 debate against a team from the University of Michigan, then beat the University of Iowa in the round of 16. In the quarterfinals, they lost to the tournament runner-up team from Emory University.
The KU duo of Owen Owings, Lee’s Summit, Missouri, and Zach Willingham, Topeka, were 5-2 in the preliminary rounds and advanced to the elimination rounds as the 14th seed. They defeated Northwestern University in the first elimination round but then were matched with their teammates in the round of 16, and the higher-seeded KU team advanced.
The team of Kate’Lynn Shaw, Chicago, and Nargis Suleman, Leawood, also went 5-2 in the preliminary rounds and qualified as the 12th seed but lost in the first single-elimination debate to a team from Emory University.
A fifth KU pair, Claire Ain, Overland Park, and Max Ulven, St. Paul, Minnesota, had a 5-2 preliminary record and qualified as the 31st seed but lost to the No. 2 seed from the University of Michigan in the round of 32.
KU also had six students finish among the top-25 individual speakers at the tournament. Larson was second, Schultz fifth, Shaw 11th, Suleman 15th, Owings 17th and Willingham 22nd.
Larson and Schultz are only the fourth KU team to have won the prestigious Wake Forest Championship. KU Debate previously won the tournament in 2017, 2010 and 1999.
Scott Harris, the David B. Pittaway Director of Debate, said, “We are very proud of Rose, Luna, and all of our teams and coaches who worked so hard this semester. It is rewarding to see that hard work pay off with the outstanding performance of our teams this weekend. Winning a tournament like Wake Forest is an incredible achievement.”
Schools competing in the tournament included Baylor University, Binghamton University, California State University at Fullerton, California State University at Long Beach, Dartmouth College, Emory University, George Mason University, Georgetown University, the University of Georgia, Gonzaga University, Harvard University, the University of Houston, Indiana University, the University of Iowa, KU, Kansas State University, the University of Kentucky, Liberty University, the University of Louisville, Macalester College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, the University of Minnesota, Missouri State University, the Naval Academy, the University of Northern Iowa, Northwestern University, New York University, the University of Oklahoma, Rochester University, the University of Southern California, Stanford University, Southern Nazarene University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Texas, Towson University, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Trinity University, Wake Forest University, West Point, Western Kentucky University, Wichita State University and the University of Wyoming.