Fulton Debate reaches semi-finals at New School Tournament

Boston College reached the semi-finals in junior varsity at the Gotham Debate Tournament held at The New School in New York City during February 10-11, 2018.

A partial list of teams competing at the tournament included Binghamton, Monmouth, New York University, The New School, Rutgers, United States Military Academy, the University of Rochester, and the University of Texas (San Antonio).

Debating for BC in junior varsity, Connor Coles,’20 & Claire Wortsman,’20 defeated teams from Monmouth (twice) and the University of Rochester/Rutgers during the preliminary rounds. They entered the elimination rounds as the 8 th seed.

In the octo finals, debating on the affirmative, Coles & Wortsman defeated Binghamton in a 2-1 decision. In the quarter-finals, Coles & Wortsman upset the top seed from Liberty in a split decision. In the semi-final, BC lost the coin flip and Liberty opted to debate on the negative. In a 3-0 decision, Liberty defeated Coles & Wortsman.

Ben Dewhurst, ’21 & Nick Wong, ’20 also debating in junior varsity reached the quarter-finals losing in a frustrating 2-1 decision (the best judge voted for BC) to the University of Texas (San Antonio). UT San Antonio won the tournament by defeating Liberty in the finals.

Jane Wu debating in novice with Alex Laifer from Western Connecticut reached the octo finals. This was a triumph given that her partner had never won a debate in any prior tournament.

At New School, Fulton Debaters won numerous individual speaker awards: Connor Coles, 6^th place (JV), Ben Dewhurst, 9^th place (JV), Noah Valdez, 5^th place (varsity), Alec Navori, 6^th place, (varsity) and Jane Wu, 5^th place (novice).

Fulton Debate next travels to Binghamton to compete in the northeast regional championship during February 24-25, 2018.