Dedication and leadership pay off

On Thursday, May 15, a select few Granite Bay High School speech and debate students boarded the train to Bakersfield for the state speech and debate tournament. The team returned with smiles on their faces, happy with the results.
The team placed second in the overall sweepstakes. Nine students continued on to semi-finals, including seven of those who were honored to compete in finals.
GBHS juniors Blake Delaplane and Ashwin Subramanian were semi-finalists in Congressional Debate, ranking in the top 24 competitors.
GBHS senior and team captain Alexa Crawford placed fifth in Original Advocacy. Crawford, who argued for reform in the process of organ donation, found the tournament tiring but exciting.
“It’s so competitive and intimidating, but at the same time it’s really energizing because you know you’re ready,” Crawford said.
GBHS senior and fellow team captain Pradhan Bhat placed fourth in International Extemporaneous.
“When I give speeches in general, I like to think of myself as a teacher,” Bhat said. “It’s not so much (that) you’re competing, but you’re teaching your audience or the judge something new.”
One of two young women in the final round, GBHS junior Stacey Wong placed third in Congressional Debate. She takes special pride in this achievement. “(Debate is) pretty male-dominant,” Wong said. “It’s kind of fun being the only girl because…I think you stand out a little bit more that way.”
GBHS junior Gary Nielson and senior Matt O’Brien placed second in Parliamentary Debate together. Nielson was also a finalist in Original Prose and Poetry, finishing in seventh place.
GBHS juniors Dominic DeMarco and Alex Wagner took first place in Public Forum Debate. This area of competition is a team effort – it gives the two students a month to prepare for a topic and requires a lot of research.
“For the amount (of research) we actually print out, we do a lot of thinking about the topic,” DeMarco said. “We’re really argumentative people, so we’re always thinking about how to work around issues.”
The school has had finalists in the past at the state tournament, but this is the first state championship in the history of the Roseville Joint Union High School District.
“From the (start) of a program, it usually takes…10 years to accomplish (a state championship),” GBHS English teacher and speech and debate coach Rita Prichard said. “This is our 11th year, so we’re right on target.”
The speech and debate team members work weekly from 7-9 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
To prepare for this past tournament, they held debates, scrimmaged and critiqued each other
“I’ve never seen us so prepared,” Prichard said. “I just knew when we went that we were going to do well because everyone was so prepared and so encouraging of each other.”
But the students aren’t the only ones applying themselves. Prichard has been giving her all along with her student, and Wong praises her for her commitment.
“She’s the most dedicated person I’ve ever seen,” Wong said. “She’s either working with us at practice, planning a debate tournament or with us at the tournament.”
According to Prichard, leadership held strong and captains were focused all year long.
“The quality of student leadership on this particular team is the best we’ve ever had, and that was the magic,” Prichard said.
The team is also very involved. Team members who did not qualify still help the others with research.
“It’s not about the individual honor,” Prichard said. “It’s about our team doing well, and everybody gets that. You would think we have a team of 10 kids going to nationals, but we don’t. Only two will be speaking on that trip. But eight more are right there behind them.”