From Cambridge, led by Coach Ciocca, the students had a great weekend at the Harvard tournament. Our students competed against 431 schools representing 37 states. Leading the way, freshman Nicholas Gonzalez made waves finishing in the Junior Varsity Division with a 4 win 2 loss record. He narrowly missed making the elimination rounds due to a tiebreak on speaker points.

 

In Junior Varsity Public Forum Debate, the junior team of Zachary Fairnington and Gabriel Llerena went 3-3, missing elimination rounds by one ballot. In the LD division Alan Munschy and Lucas Hurley also picked up some big wins throughout the weekend. The Lincoln Douglas debaters were arguing the morality of possessing nuclear arsenals, and for the last time the Public Forum debaters were advocating for a Universal Basic Income.

 

At the Hart House Invitational held at the University of Toronto, Columbus was one of two American schools who competed in the largest annual Canadian high school tournament. While a couple of the Columbus teams started strong with high ranks at the beginning of the tournament, the team hit a roadblock on some of the more progressive topics, including:

 

-       This house prefers a world without formal critiques of art. 

-       This house would allow communities to vote to lower amounts of policing in their neighborhoods

-       This house believes that the feminist movement should advocate against monogamy

-       In countries with highly valued and endangered wildlife, this house believes that environmental groups should advocate for the sale of trophy hunting licenses

-       This house believes that in large metropolitan areas, governments should use eminent domain on low-density areas to create high-density housing

-       This house proposes a world where tran-activism had remained separate from LGB Activism

 

Leading the way in Toronto was the senior duo of Sebastian Lasaga & Marcos Ortega who finished with a total of 5 points. Closely behind them were the teams of Jan Andretta & Marcelo Andreu, and Albert Sanchez & Phillip Castro. Although the team didn't have a hugely successful tournament, there were certainly a couple of intercultural moments that made the trip worth it.

 

On the way to the tournament, the team encountered a protest by First Nations people protesting a pipeline on native land and on Sunday, the Explorers had a chance to celebrate mass in St. Michael's Basilica in Old Downtown Toronto.  

 

The team next competes at the varsity state tournament at the end of the month in Orlando, Florida.