Heated debates took place all over the El Camino campus this week, so much so that it may have been hard for those not familiar with the event to understand what was said.

The intensity level was so high that an EC competitor even slammed the table when trying to get his point across.

El Camino’s forensics and debate team placed 21st out of 700 teams at the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence (NPTE) that took place on campus from March 14 to 16.

EC was the first ever community college to host the prestigious NPTE, and coach Joseph Evans thought the team did well.

“This is the farthest any community college has gone in this type of competition,” Evans said.

Out of four community colleges competing in the tournament, EC was the only one to advance to the elimination rounds and the participants thought it was amazing.

“This is so far the biggest achievement I’ve had in debate,” EC’s Isaac Curtiss said. “because this is the most competitive tournament in the country.”

Going into elimination rounds, Evans said that he wasn’t expecting his only qualifying team (two students on each team) to go this far ahead in the competition, and neither were his students.

“I didn’t think we were going to pull through, but we did it,” EC’s Mason Jones said. “Me and my partner, we both did an amazing job executing during our debate.”

For their first elimination round, EC went against Hannah Mathieson and Sarah McDonagh from Louis and Clark University.

The order in which they presented was: Mathieson, Curtiss, McDonagh and Jones. Each one of them spoke so fast that their speeches seemed slurred to the point where it became incomprehensible for the “normal person” to understand.

The level at which these students were debating is experienced so it becomes hard for people to understand what they are even saying, Evans said.

The EC team made it up to the third elimination round, while former EC student, Arielle Stephenson made it to the fourth elimination round ranking 14th overall.

Stephenson competed with Southern Illinois University this year, after being a part of the EC team last year.

Allyson Escalante, a former EC student who competed in 2014 with the team, placed 5th this year. Escalante is now with the University of Oregon (UO).

“Arielle and Allyson are absolutely killing it in this tournament,” Curtiss said.

Evans said he was super proud of his former students and thinks they are both “fantastic competitors.”

Up next, EC will be participating at Cal State Long Beach from March 19-21 at another tournament, where all five teams will participate.