MSU Debate had an impressive showing at the JW Patterson Debates hosted by the University of Kentucky this past weekend with one team finishing in the Final Four.
Joanna Gusis, a Statistics and Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy senior in the Honors College, and Stephen Lewis, a Social Relations and Policy junior, reached the semifinals (Final Four) after a long weekend of debates. 
Gusis and Lewis won five of their six preliminary debates with wins over Stanford University, Northwestern University, Wake Forest University, Macalester College, and Western Kentucky University.
After preliminary debates, teams were seeded into a single-elimination bracket based on their wins in preliminary debates and overall speaker points. Gusis was the tournament’s second overall speaker from a field of over 250 debaters and Lewis was eighth.
Based on their dominant record and individual speaker awards, Gusis and Lewis entered elimination debates as the tournament’s fifth seed.
In elimination debates, Gusis and Lewis defeated teams from Dartmouth College, Stanford University, and the University of Iowa before being narrowly bested in the semifinals by a team from Emory University.
“Joanna and Stephen have had quite a run to start the season,” said Will Repko, MSU Debate Head Coach. “They’ve defeated some of the best teams in the country, been in the semifinals at the largest tournament so far in the fall, and consistently been recognized as high-level speakers.”
At a tournament hosted by Northwestern earlier this season, Gusis and Lewis were the tournament’s second seed, both received top ten speaker awards, and reached the Sweet 16.
That’s not the end of MSU Debate’s impressive results from the weekend. Arielle Gearring, a Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy senior, and Hina Shehzad, an International Relations junior, reached the double octafinals (Round of 32) after wins over Northwestern University, Georgetown University, the University of Kansas, and the University of Texas at Dallas. 
In recognition of the strong start to their season, Gearring and Shehzad were recently invited to participate in the Baird Round Robin – an invitation-only tournament hosted by the University of Iowa.
“Hina and Arielle have been challenging themselves to innovate their arguments since the first tournament of the season and they showed everyone at the Kentucky tournament that they’re a force to be reckoned with,” said Repko.
In addition, Eleazar Asase, a mechanical engineering junior, and Will Sterbenc, a James Madison College freshman, reached the quarterfinals (Elite Eight) in the tournament’s Wildcat Division – a division for competitors in their first or second year of college debate.
MSU was also represented at the Northwestern tournament by Glen Scully, a computer science senior, Zaria Jarman, a Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy junior, , Henry Martin, a physics and philosophy freshman in the Honors College, and Isabella Foster, a philosophy and film freshman in the Honors College.“It was a great weekend to be a Spartan debater. Truly every team at the tournament had impressive wins and having three teams in elimination debates shows how hard everyone has been working,” said Jasmine Stidham, MSU Debate Assistant Coach.
The MSU Debate team is part of the Honors College.