Wellington Debate’s Epic Philadelphia Weekend
For the second consecutive year, Wellington Debate traveled to the
Liberty Bell Classic Debate Invitational on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania and brought home a championship trophy.
In Public Forum Debate, the team of Rachel Ganon & Vinnie Gasso went 10-1 and took home first place honors from the UPenn tournament, scoring a 3-2 judges decision against Millburn in the finals.
In addition, the team of Ali Sina Booeshaghi & Yourui Ruan advanced to the octofinal round before being knocked out of the tournament.
It was Wellington’s third championship at a major national tournament since Paul Gaba became coach in 2002. The previous one was also earned at UPenn in 2012, when Ruan won Novice Lincoln Douglas Debate.
Wellington’s PFD teams of Sabrina Abesamis & Juliana Diatezua, Kevin Murphy & Greg Foster, and Sydney Rogalsky & Caitlyn Konopka eash narrowly missed advancing to break rounds as well.
By advancing to at least the quarterfinal round, both Ganon & Gasso earned a bid to the 2013 Tournament of Champions national invitational in Kentucky at the end of April.
The team of Ganon & Gasso actually scored a double championship over the weekend of February 15-17 by winning the second annual LBC Public Forum Debate Round Robin Invitational, a pre-tournament competition where 10 teams squared off against each other as a precursor to the full tournament. In the Round Robin, Ganon & Gasso took six of their ten preliminary round ballots, then swept teams from Timber Creek and Union Catholic in two 3-0 decisions to take home the top prize.
Ganon & Gasso each earned 147 National Forensic League points during their 18 rounds of debate competition.
In addition, Rafael Blecher earned his varsity letter and his NFL Degree of Honor by surpassing the 75-point mark.