MSU Debate made a run to the Final Four at the Franklin R. Shirley Classic at Wake Forest University last weekend.
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 after a weekend of debates.
Gusis and Lewis bested teams from Harvard University, Northwestern University, Georgetown University, the University of Minnesota, and George Mason University in their preliminary debates.
Debaters are also assigned individual speaker points in their preliminary debates and Gusis was the tournament’s thirteenth overall speaker and Lewis was sixteenth.
Wake Forest is the largest tournament in the fall semester with 138 entries in the open division.
“Stephen and Joanna’s results are incredibly impressive,” said Will Repko, MSU Debate Head Coach. “Two top twenty speaker awards in a pool of 276 debaters demonstrates how well they were debating.”
Based on preliminary round records and speaker points, the top 32 teams were seeded into a single-elimination bracket. Gusis and Lewis were the tournament’s thirteenth seed entering elimination debates.
In elimination debates, Gusis and Lewis defeated teams from Baylor University, California State University Long Beach, and Emory University to reach the semifinals.
This is the second semifinals appearance for Gusis and Lewis this season. They were previously in the semifinals at the JW Patterson Debates hosted by the University of Kentucky.
“The whole team has been working hard since the summer and these results are a testament to that work,” said Jasmine Stidham, MSU Debate Assistant Coach. “Many of the arguments we used in big spots this weekend have been in the works for months.”
MSU was also represented at the tournament by Arielle Gearring, a Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy senior, Hina Shehzad, an International Relations junior, 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.
The MSU Debate team is part of the Honors College.