El Camino is hosting the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence for the first time ever next week, and EC’s debate team will be competing.

EC’s participating team is composed of two students, Isaac Curtiss and Mason Jones, both in their second year with the team debate coach Mark Crossman said.

The tournament will be from March 14 to 16 and it will consist of various elimination rounds. Debates will be held in the Art, Business, Music and Social Science buildings on campus.

“What these students are doing is basically like if a community college qualified for March Madness,” debate coach Joseph Evans said.

EC was asked to host this event and is the first community college to host it. EC is one of only four community colleges among the 54 schools competing so this is a big deal, Crossman said.

Jones and Curtiss are the top team for the Warriors, who qualified for the event by placing in senior division tournaments.

“It was really exciting for me at least to know we will be competing at the most prestigious tournament basically at our home court,” Jones said.

Curtiss said that since he wasn’t able to attend last year’s event and that it’s a big deal because this year he hopes to be able to enjoy the tournament.

The biggest struggle for EC is only having one team participating in this tournament, as opposed to other schools that have three to four teams participating, so EC has less people working on things, Jones said.

Evans said he is helping the team prepare by having mock trials, quizzes and drills; they have been putting in 16 to 17 hours of preparation a week.

“If there’s certain things they don’t know or are weak at, then we’ll just practice, practice, practice, so everything is pretty intense,” Evans said. “We just hope to do our best.”