At the California Double-Up tournament at Azusa Pacific University this past weekend, ECC’s Forensics debate team took first place in debate and second place overall, Francesca Bishop, director of forensics, said.
twenty-six schools competed at the tournament, with each school arranging its students in teams of two to compete in individual events, Bishop said.
“An amazing performance,” Bishop said, “It was a really great tournament, really good start of the year for us.”
There were 10 two-person debate teams from EC competing in different events and eight of them advancing to elimination rounds with several taking gold, Bishop said.
“We put people together based on their experience level, their availability, their success, and their commitment,” Bishop said.
This was the first “real debate tournament” that the forensics team has competed in this semester, although there was a tournament that was more like a “scrimmage” against other schools, from Sept. 29-30 here at EC, Bishop said.
The debates were parliamentary and all of the topics were based on subjects that were discussed at the recent presidential debate.
“We debated financing and all of the domestic issues like Medicare and health care,” Bishop said.
The team’s success at the Double-Up tournament may put the EC debate team at the top of the leaderboard for the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) sweepstakes, Bishop said.
“We’re really proud of our novice team, all of them made it to the elimination round,” Janine Douglass, vice president of individual events, said.
The NPDA is the largest national intercollegiate debate organization in the U.S., with between 200 and 250 schools attending at least one tournament during the course of the year, according to parlidebate.org.
The forensics team has an outstanding reputation and consistently wins championships at every level of competition and earns top ranks from the NPDA according to elcamino.edu.
“We are going to have a good year,” Bishop said. “We have got very talented students.”