Over Nov. 15-16 the NIU Forensic Speech and Debate team had the chance to compete at two tournaments: the Wenzel-Soller tournament at Highland Community College and the AFA District Five Qualifier tournament at North Central College.
The team left this weekend with a win in debate sweepstakes and fourth place overall at the Wenzel-Soller tournament in a field of 10 teams.
The team’s win in the open International Public Debate at the Wenzel-Soller tournament marked their first win in debate of the season.
Many individual speakers placed at these tournaments, which contributed to their debate win.
Wenzel-Soller tournament
- Makeya Van, semifinalist in IPDA, fourth place in impromptu
- AJ Evon, champion in IPDA, second place in debate speaker awards
- Cooper Linden, champion in IPDA, fifth place in debate speaker awards
- Noah Joerin, champion in IPDA, third place in debate speaker awards, sixth place in individual sweepstakes
- Logan Sperling, second place in duo interpretation
- Rocco Walsh, second place in duo interpretation
- Sarah Larson, sixth place in poetry
AFA District Five Qualifier
- Ryan Umare, fourth place in duo interpretation
- AJ Evon, fourth place in duo interpretation, fourth place in persuasive speaking
The team had good feelings going into the weekend. AJ Evon, public relations officer of forensics, spoke more on both the confidence and hesitation the team had going into this weekend.
“I get excited to see everyone and compete that morning. It kind of energizes me. It gets me excited for the day,” Evon said. “Some people were competing for the first time that weekend in either an individual event or in debate, so some people got a little nervous.”
Public speaking comes with a lot of pressure, Evon elaborated more on the mindset they set for their new competitors.
“They come out of a round and they say, ‘I could have made a better point here,’ but then we always switch our mindset to, ‘OK, what’s the next round?’ because you can’t bring your past round into the next round,” Evon said.
After leaving with good results, the team looks to continue working hard for the remainder of the season.
“We’re definitely excited to continue debating. We’ve had a really good debate season so far,” Evon said. “I think that energy of knowing we’ve practiced this, this is what we come to our debate meetings for and now we get to put these skills to use — it’s always a really positive feeling.”
