By Carly Watson
Michigan State University Debate had two teams reach elimination debates at the Northwestern Season Opener this week. Both MSU Debate Teams reached the top 32 at the tournament with over 125 teams competing.
Historically, competitions have been in-person events, but MSU started experimenting with online competitions in the Fall of 2019. “That experimentation wound up paying real dividends”, said Head Debate Coach Will Repko. “Our online scrimmages helped paved the way for MSU and our Big Ten partners in Evanston to host larger online debate events. We’re excited to keep the momentum going and carry it into our next competition.”
In qualifying for the elimination round sequence MSU students defeated teams from Emory University, Georgetown University, Gonzaga University, the University of Kansas, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Eventually, the MSU Teams bowed out to teams from Trinity University and a separate entry from the University of Kentucky.
Competing at the Northwestern Season Opener were: constitutional democracy senior Duvall Adair, philosophy senior Lena Grossman, computer science sophomore Nolan Hooper, computer science freshman David Koster,
social relations and policy junior Piper Meloche, political theory, comparative cultures and politics senior Ezra Serrins, computer science freshman Mitchell Scott, political theory and constitutional democracy freshman Theo Van Hof, and psychology sophomore Maddie Van Zant.
MSU Debate will compete next at the JW Patterson Debates hosted by the University of Kentucky the weekend of October 3. In the interim, Team members excitedly await Tuesday’s upcoming Presidential Debate.
The MSU Debate team is part of the Honors College.