This weekend at Cal State Long Beach (CSULB), the forensics team will battle colleges from the southwestern part of the United States for the national title.

Still ranking second among junior colleges while registered in the Top 20 by the National Parliamentary Debate Association, the team is hoping to defend their knowledge against other teams.

Both junior colleges and universities will debate in the National Championships at CSULB, but there is not one particular opponent, Bishop said.

“I wouldn’t say that there is any one school. Clearly, we’re looking at the top junior colleges with an eye towards nationals. And these are always going to be teams like South Orange County, Moorpark, and Santiago Canyon. But there are also a lot of four-year schools like Long Beach, Point Loma. They always give good competition.”

Because the team has now gone through a semester of experience, they have successfully earned skills in the process that will allow them to debate more decisively and analytically.

“The team has improved a lot. It shows they have more depth,” Bishop said about the team who will participate in four new individual events at CSULB.

Over coffee or dinner, the teammates discuss about what they have learned from debating in tournaments.

While looking back on the semester, team president Stephanie Rhodes said that the forensics team has learned about team spirit and competing through each other rather than by mere practice alone.

“We definitely have a sense of cohesion. Not only having to get to know each other but to really establish a bond so that not only are we committed what they do, but are also able to understand, cooperate, and help each other out,” Rhodes said about everyone.

It was important for the team to learn about each other’s individual personalities in order for the team to better understand and help support each other to gain more success and because of this, more success has happened.

“At the last tournament, all of our novice teams broke which has never happened before,” Rhodes said while explaining that all of the teams that consisted of new members reached the final round.

Junior and senior team members or third-year members have also had good records, meaning that there were no losing records.

Both first-year and third-year members agree that learning to debate by using technical details has challenged them.

Because of the semester-long experience, coach Mark Crossman believes that the team will have a good tournament..