Speech and Debate team qualifies for state championships

PHOTO: Members of speech events pose with their awards after qualification rounds ended.

By Ayisi Ni,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Davis High’s Speech and Debate team participated in qualification competitions for the California state championships in February and March. Fifteen members of the team qualified for individual events in both speech and debate categories. 

According to head coach Luca Moretti, 60% of the team qualified, the highest number of people he has seen in five years. 

“When it’s a team built on institutional knowledge like this one, every single year is going to be more successful than the last one,” Moretti said. 

Junior Yusuf Abdelnur qualified on March 5 for the parliamentary debate event. He was surprised when called up to the stage as he thought he was not going to make it.

“We weren’t expecting to win … I was just beaming on my way up there. I was ecstatic,” Abdelnur said. 

Abdelnur’s debate partner, Noah Meissner, was also stunned but says that he is looking forward to the state championships. 

“We’re going to go through debates from previous years, and see what people did and how they did good in those tournaments,” Meissner said.  

This was the first chance for both Abdelnur and Meissner to compete in-person due to the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions. When they first got involved in the fall of 2020, all competitions were moved online to limit potential COVID-19 exposure. 

“It was a lot less stressful in-person once you get used to it, as it’s a little bit more personal,” Meissner said. 

Junior Claire Miller went to both qualifications as she competed in both the extemporaneous speech event and the parliamentary debate event. 

“It’s been kind of a wild ride … You’re stressed about your round 30 minutes before it, but that’s it. The rest of the time you’re just chatting and vibing,” Miller said. “The great thing about these tournaments is that you make so many friends.” 

According to Miller, she looks forward to competing next year on the team and hopes to recruit more members to join so they can improve on their confidence and public speaking skills. 

Six of the qualifying 15 individuals are freshmen at various junior highs in Davis, according to Moretti.

Freshmen Jaswant Shah, Jace Wang, Jeffery Wang, Wooyoung Jung, Drew Mysliwiec and Alec Robins qualified for the policy debate category.

“It’s beyond just the high school. We’re able to help and work with kids (who are at Holmes, Emerson, DaVinci or Harper),” Moretti said.