Carly Watson
Two teams from Michigan State University Debate reached elimination debates at the Owen L. Coon Memorial Tournament hosted by Northwestern University.
The team of Piper Meloche and Nate Glancy reached the Sweet 16 after defeating teams from Georgetown University, Emory University, Wake Forest University, and Emporia State University in preliminary debates.
In their elimination rounds, Meloche, a social relations and policy senior in the Honors College, and Glancy, an economics senior, bested a team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst before being defeated by a team from Dartmouth College.
Tony Miklovis, a social relations and policy and international relations sophomore, and Joanna Gusis, a political theory and constitutional democracy freshman, also reached elimination debates after beating teams from Indiana University, Emory University, Kansas University, and West Georgia University in preliminary debates.
Miklovis and Gusis, both members of the Honors College, were one of only a handful of teams in elimination debates represented by underclassman.
Will Repko, MSU Debate Head Coach, is thrilled with the results from the Northwestern Tournament. “Having two teams in elimination debates is a testament to the depth of the team and we’re excited for the rest of the season,” said Repko.
Also competing at the Owen L. Coon Tournament were David Koster, a political science and pre-law junior in the Honors College, Ephraim Bennett, a computer science sophomore, Miaomiao Zi, an interdisciplinary humanities freshman, Glen Scully, a computer science freshman, Wajeeha Kamal, a political theory and constitutional democracy and journalism junior in the Honors College, and Ingrid Iracheta, a pre-veterinary freshman.
The team of Zi and Scully debated in the Junior Varsity division and had the requisite number of preliminary rounds to qualify for elimination debates but narrowly missed the cutoff.
“This was Miaomiao’s first ever tournament using a policy format so we were thrilled to see her and Glen do so well,” said Kevin McCaffrey, MSU Debate Assistant Coach.
The Northwestern Tournament is the first tournament of the year and students will compete at tournaments across the country leading up to the national championship tournaments in March. MSU Debate will compete next at the JW Patterson Debates hosted by the University of Kentucky the weekend of October 1.
The MSU Debate team is part of the Honors College.