Upper School Debate Team Competes in the Yale Invitational

On Saturday, October 3rd, 12 Hackley Upper School debaters competed in the Yale Invitational, one of the biggest debate tournaments of the season. While moving to an online format, the Yale tournament involves over 2500 students from around the country and almost 1000 virtual debate rooms.

Hackley had 4 debaters, Co-Captain Ben Kirsch and Zach Yusaf and Co-Captain Ben Aybar and Sid Shah, compete in the Varsity Public Forum division and 8 debaters, Co-captains Kiri Fitzpatrick and Lily Napach, freshman Sofia DeSpirito, Tommy Troso, Harper Kelsey, and sophomores Aiden McComiskey, Mason Napach, and Robin Kliatchko, compete in the Parliamentary division. Almost all of our Parliamentary debaters, as well as Ben Aybar and Sid Shah, were actually able to debate from Hackley thus maintaining some sense of team unity by being in the same location.

Ben Kirsch and Zach Yusaf made it to elimination rounds, earning the 8th place preliminary seed out of 290 teams while two of our Parliamentary teams, Kiri Fitzpatrick and Lily Napach and Harper Kesley and Robin Kliatchko, cracked the top 16 of 113 teams in the Parli division. All teams made it through their first elim rounds.

Two of our speakers, Ben Kirsch in the Public Forum Division, and Kiri Fitzpatrick in the Parli Division, were also recognized in the top 10, with Ben earning 5th place overall speaker and Kiri notching the 7th  position. This was an extraordinary result for the team, especially this early in the season. Please congratulate all our debaters if you happen to see them. Since debate tournaments have moved online, there is one almost every weekend so our team should get in a lot of competition this year!
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