After an impressive victory at the California Double-Up Tournament, the forensics team had another great performance last weekend in the Watson-Lancer Invitational at Pasadena City College, Mark Urista, assistant coach, said.
“We did really well, but it didn’t go as well as last week’s tournament,” Urista said. “But in limited preparation events, we did better than anyone else in the tournament, and all of our teams finished (with more wins than losses).”
Many of the first-year forensics members were competing in open division, which is a much tougher competition than last week’s tournament.
“Our first-year students, in their second tournament ever, were competing against students with more than one year experience,” Urista said.
One of the team’s main problems was adjusting to the judging panel, Urista said.
“We only had one week to prepare, and there was a big difference in the judging panel from last week to this week,” Urisa said. “Many of the judges had little to no experience in judging debates.”
Stirling McKenzie, one of the stars of the Double-Up Tournament, agreed with Urista.
“One panel focused on the specifics and the other looked at things in a broad perspective, like presentation, how you say something, etc,” McKenzie said.
The team did very well, despite the judges and unpredictable levels of competition, McKenzie said.
“You didn’t know who you would hit in the rounds. The entire team still did very well overall,” McKenzie added.
McKenzie did well for the second straight tournament, finishing first in the open speaker event, winning a silver medal with his partner Robert Maxwell in the open debate and finishing second in the novice duo event with Whitney Gamble.
Other winners included Sam Briodo, who finished third in novice poetry, and also won a bronze medal with partner Patrick Gimenez in novice debate. He was also a finalist in the novice impromptu events.
Daanish Hameed finished first in novice impromptu and was also a finalist in novice extemporaneous speaking.
The novices did particularly well, especially Gamble, who was surprised by how she did.
“I did not expect to be in the top ten,” Gamble said, after finishing second in the novice speaker event.
In all her rounds, Gamble never scored less than 28 out of 30 points, which she said was unbelievable.
Gamble attributes her success to her coaches, who she said were great and prepared her for this tournament. Gamble was also a finalist in both novice extemporaneous speaking and novice impromptu speaking.
With her performance, Gamble is no longer a novice and will now be competing with junior level competition.
“It’s a big deal for me moving up and winning a gold medal (for novice debate) with a new partner (Sydney Awakuni), who I had only a day to practice with,” she said.
The forensics team’s next tournament will be the Griffin Invitational at Grossmont College beginning on Nov. 21.
“We’re all hitting the strategy room,” McKenzie said. “We want everybody to make sure they feel confident heading into our next tournament.”