Noah Valdez wins top speaker at CEDA East Regionals

Noah Valdez, ’21, won top speaker honors in the open division of the Cross-Examination Debate Association’s (CEDA) East Regional Championship Tournament held in Binghamton, New York during February 24-25, 2018.

A partial list of schools competing in the tournament included Binghamton, Columbia, Cornell, George Mason, New York University, West Virginia and the United States Military Academy.

Competing at the CEDA East tournament with Noah Valdez was Alec Navori’21, who received third place speaker honors. During the preliminary rounds, Valdez & Navori were 5-1, defeating teams from Cornell (3 times), West Virginia, and George Mason.

As the top seeded team entering the elimination rounds, Valdez & Navori received a bye into the quarter finals, where they faced the 8 th seed from Cornell. Boston College was locked negative and were upset by Cornell in a 3-0 decision.

In the novice division, Dan Moyer’20 & Ado Jean-Noel’21 also reached the quarter-finals. In the octo finals, Moyer & Jean-Noel defeated New York University in a split decision. They were defeated in the quarter finals by the top seed from Liberty.

One of the unique features of the CEDA East regional tournament is that it holds an election to determine the recipients of several student and coaching awards.

Four persons were nominated for the coach of the year award: Jason Smith of Binghamton, Sofiya Andreyeva of New York University, Christy Webster Dunn of Boston College, and Jefferson Yahom of the University of Rochester.

Congratulations go to Christy Webster Dunn for winning the East Regional coach of the year award.