From Friday 3/28 to Saturday 3/29, 25 AA students participated in the 2025 District National Qualifier Tournament hosted by Cottonwood Classical. We had 21 entries total competing across 7 different types of events. By the end, we were named the Overall District Sweepstakes Winner, had TEN students qualify for Nationals, and FOUR District Champions!
Quick Stats
- 25 participating students from AA
- 21 entries (12 in Speech; 9 in Debate)
- 10 total National Qualifiers
- 4 District Champions
- Speech Sweepstakes Winner
- AA named Overall District Sweepstakes Winner!
Qualifiers
- Meryem Anderoglu — Original Oratory
- Ayla Zomermaand — Intl. Extemp
- Aarush Tutiki — Intl. Extemp
- Zoya Jehanzeb — United States Extemp
- Sowmya Sankaran — Lincoln Douglas
- Anagha Devarakonda — Public Forum
- Jaycee Marquez — Public Forum
- Rosa Duvall — Congressional Debate
- William Landahl — World Schools
- Vincent Walters — World Schools
Participating Students
Class of 2025: Abbott Carothers, Ayla Zomermaand, Sara Chehy, Meryem Anderoglu
Class of 2026: Anagha Devarakonda, Jaycee Sanchez, William Landahl, Aarush Tutiki, Marcelo Tohen, Ethan Xia, Valerie Meza, Videet Modhia
Class of 2027: Sowmya Sankaran, Maia Griffith, JR Zhao, Arjun Grandhe, Audrey Finklestein, OJ Ukpedinjagba, Ed Tracy
Class of 2028: Zoya Jehanzeb, Kaya Mitchell, Avett Deacon, Emma Tomasson, Sohum Kopalle, Leo Xia
Research Topics
In DEBATE, students prepared for the following resolutions:
- Lincoln Douglas Debate — Resolved: The development of Artificial General Intelligence is immoral.
- Public Forum Debate — Resolved: In the United States, the benefits of the use of generative artificial intelligence in education outweigh the harms.
- Policy Debate — Resolved: The United States federal government should significantly strengthen its protection of domestic intellectual property rights in copyrights, patents, and/or trademarks.
Through their efforts, our students extensively researched topics ranging from AI surveillance in schools, and the dangers of Artificial General Intelligence, Indigenous intellectual property rights, and concepts related to Supreme Court "court clog."
In SPEECH, we presented pieces on:
- the effect of inflation on working-class families
- apiculture and bee-keeping
- noise pollution
- mestiza identity
- the experiences of women in debate
Students in Extemporaneous Speaking also gave speeches with limited prep time on questions such as:
- How will the Trump presidency affect the relationship between Latin America & China?
- How should Tanzania respond to its Marburg virus outbreak?
- How will mass deportations affect US business and industry?
- How will government job cuts affect food safety?
Speech Results
Original Oratory:
- NATIONAL QUALIFIER — Meryem Anderoglu '25
- 3rd place Finalist & 1st Alternate — Sara Chehy '25
- 5th place Finalist & 2nd Alternate — Valerie Meza '26
- All 3 of our Oratories advanced to the Final round!
International Extemp:
- District Champ & NATIONAL QUALIFIER — Aarush Tutiki '26
- NATIONAL QUALIFIER — Ayla Zomermaand '25
- 3rd place finalist & 1st Alternate — Kaya Mitchell '28
- AA swept 1st through 3rd place in IX and secured BOTH of the available National Qualifier slots!
US Extemp:
- NATIONAL QUALIFIER — Zoya Jehanzeb
- 3rd place finalist & 1st Alternate — Avett Deacon '28
- Finalist & 3rd alternate — Emma Tomasson '28
- 3 of our US Extempers made it to finals as freshman — two as novices!
- Avett "picket-fenced" in prelims, earning straight "1s" from his judges!
Debate Results
Public Forum:
- District Champs & NATIONAL QUALIFIERS — Jaycee M and Anagha D
- 3rd place Semi-Finalists & 1st Alternates — Abbott C and Aarush T
- Special shout-out to Abbott and Aarush for being undefeated in prelims!
Lincoln Douglas:
- District Champ & NATIONAL QUALIFIER — Sowmya S
- Quarterfinalist & 3rd Alternate — Maia G
- Special shout-out to Maia, a novice competing amongst other varsity students, for being undefeated in prelims!
Policy:
- 2nd Place Finalists — William L and Ayla Z
- Especially exciting given this was Ayla's first-ever policy tournament!
Special Accolades & Historic Success
- AA qualified twice as many students as in 2024!
- This year marks the highest number of qualifiers we've had since 2021.
- Rosa Duvall becomes our FIRST qualifier in Congressional Debate in at least a decade or more!
- Jaycee & Anagha are two-time back-to-back qualifiers in Public Forum Debate
- In fact, AA is now on a 7-year streak of qualifying students in PF debate, sending at least one team in the two possible qualifying slots every year since 2019.
- Meryem Anderoglu becomes our first OO qualifier since Addison Fulton (2020 National Champion) in 2021.
- Zoya Jehanzeb, a freshman, becomes our first qualifier in USX since 2018! Zoya is now on track to potentially become a 4-year qualifier, one of the highest honors a student can achieve.
Team Shout-Outs
Avett, Kaia, and Emma for their high energy during warmups that genuinely energized me and had me feeling hyped for my rounds
OJ has a genuine passion for the educational importance of Speech which was deeply inspiring because it is a value which is constantly overlooked by many in the community. He is constantly cultivating his skills outside of required debate practice. Whether he is working at his house or giving me a speech during office hours about noise pollution I am confident OJ is developing the abilities required to become a great speaker.
Arjun & JR — they held their own really well even though they were neovices in a varsity division- proud of them, they're gonna go really far in the future
Videet Modhia because he helped me with some prep and was nice to everyone.
Sowmya is always so positive and I saw her stand her ground in her semis and finals rounds- she's tough as nails and I respect her positivity through all that stress
OVERALL HIGHLIGHTS
Debate:
- 5 of 9 entries advanced (almost 1/2 our entries!)
- TWO entries undefeated in prelims
- We secured 2 qualifying entries out of 5 total slots available to us
- AA won 2 out of 3 events
- 11 district finalists — almost 1/2 were 1st place state champion titles
- 3 qualifiers overall in 2 out of the 3 debate events we entered in
Speech:
- 9 out of 12 entries advanced — 9 district finalists (75% of entries!!!)
- 1 entry undefeated in prelims ("picket-fenced")
- 7 entries in Top 3
- Finalists in 3 out of 4 events we entered in
- 3 out of 8 total events had our finalists
- 4 qualifiers overall in 3 out of the 4 events we entered in
Overall:
- Secured 6 out of 13 slots available from what we entered in (~50%!)
- Qualifiers in 5 out of 7 events we entered in
- 7 qualifiers in Speech & Debate
- 1 Congress Qualifier in House
- 2 WSD Accepted entries
- 10 Qualifiers Total (tied for the number of qualifying slots in the State!)
- 1st place District Speech Sweepstakes Award
- OVERALL DISTRICT SWEEPSTAKES WINNER