By Carly Watson
Michigan State University Debate had teams in elimination debates in two divisions at the JW Patterson Debates hosted by the University of Kentucky.
In the Wildcat division, Glen Scully, a computer science freshman, and Miaomiao Zi, an interdisciplinary humanities freshman in the Honors College, reached the semifinals and Scully was named third overall speaker.
Scully and Zi won five straight debates against opponents from the University of Kansas, Liberty University, James Madison University, and the University of Minnesota in preliminary debates. They entered elimination debates as the second seed.
In elimination debates, they bested a team from the University of Kansas in the quarterfinals before being defeated by Gonzaga University in a close semifinal debate.
“Miaomiao and Glen had an awesome tournament this weekend,” said Kevin McCaffrey, MSU Debate Assistant Coach. “They’ve both been working really hard to learn more about debate and the topic so it was great to see their hard work pay off.”
The team of Piper Meloche, a social relations and policy senior in the Honors College, and Nate Glancy, an economics senior, reached the Sweet 16 of the Open Division after defeating teams from the University of Texas at Austin, Baylor University, George Mason University, the University of Houston, and Wayne State University in preliminary debates.
Meloche and Glancy entered elimination debates as the tenth overall seed and defeated a team from the University of Minnesota before being eliminated from the tournament by Dartmouth College.
“Nate and Piper have had a really strong debut to the season – they’ve been in the top sixteen at the first two tournaments and had some really impressive wins,” said McCaffrey.
MSU was also represented at the JW Patterson Debates in the Open Division by Tony Miklovis, a social relations and policy and international relations sophomore, Joanna Gusis, a political theory and constitutional democracy freshman, Mitchell Scott, an economics junior, and Arielle Gearring, a political theory and constitutional democracy freshman. Miklovis and Gusis are both members of the Honors College.
In the Wildcat division, MSU Debate also had a team consisting of Tyler Buck, a political theory and constitutional democracy freshman, and Aadit Agrahara, a political theory and constitutional democracy freshman.
MSU Debate will compete next at the George Ziegelmueller Invitation hosted by Wayne State in a few weeks.
The MSU Debate team is part of the Honors College.