The Bard Debate Union opened the 2013-2014 travel season with a BANG at this weekend’s Season Opener at SUNY Binghamton (Sept 20-22, 2013)!!! There were nearly 100 teams in attendance competing in both policy and worlds debate but this did not stop the Bard Debate Union from making a strong showing. Worlds novices at their first tournament ever, Eva-Marie Quinones ’17 and Jackie Merrill ’17, completed preliminary rounds with an impressive 9 points and then, upon advancing to novice finals, WON THE TOURNAMENT and were named novice champions! Returning debaters, Lee Gensler ’14 and Hanze Song ’15, ended preliminary rounds with 12 points and advanced to semi-finals! Lee was also 5th over-all speaker at the tournament! Finally, new policy debaters, Nora Cooper ’17 and Jeremy Kaplitt ’17, worked their way through a very competitive JV policy division ending prelims with a 3-3 record; after advancing to elimination rounds, Nora and Jeremy put on a very impressive performance in Octa-finals, upsetting the 6th seed and continuing on to quarter-finals. They ended the tournament tied for 5th place!! Congrats also to Stephanie Presch ’15 for her continued excellent work as a judge (she chaired all 6 preliminary worlds debates) and to all of our returning debaters who were in attendance and helped to make the weekend a great success. Go Bard Debate!
