Freshman Parli Team Finishes Fourth in Illinois
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Photo courtesy of Kawika Vellalos |
Published in The Herald 10/17/08
Patrick Henry College Parliamentary Debate teams won fourth and fifth place last weekend at the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) tournament held at Northern Illinois University.
Freshmen team Alan Carillo and Gregory Escobar won fourth place in the open division, with Levi Swank and John Miller right behind them in fifth place.
"I am really excited about getting fourth place," Carillo said. "I feel tremendously blessed to have done so, especially at our first tournament…all the teams we debated were solid teams, especially the team from Wheaton that beat us in the sixth round and the semi-final round."
Since this is their first year at PHC and their first time competing in a national Parli tournament, neither Carillo nor Escobar were expecting to do so well.
According to Carillo, they went to the tournament with the intention to "learn, practice, have fun, and glorify God…We didn't feel totally ready, so we weren't expecting to do very well, but we did our best and were both very excited and pleasantly surprised with the result."
Tim Snyder, PHC's Parli coach, said that although he had expected Carillo and Escobar to do well, he hadn't expected it so quickly. "They complement each other really well," he said. "Alan is a very charismatic person and Gregory is very knowledgeable about issues."
Swank was happy to start the year off so strongly. "In previous tournaments when we've debated teams from the West Coast, we usually lose the rounds because they get very theory-intensive."
This time, however, Snyder and sophomore Grace Lichlyter worked with the team and developed drills to help them be better prepared for theory intensive debate.
This was the first Parli tournament PHC has competed in this school year. "I feel that the tournament was a success," Snyder said. "NPDA tournaments are harder than NEDA tournaments, which we competed in last year."
Twenty-six teams from around the country were at the tournament. "The competition level was good, especially where we're at in the development of our program," Snyder said. "About half the PHC team is new, so we chose a tournament that would have a more conversational style of debate."
According to Snyder, in Western state tournaments teams have a tendency to speak very quickly. Because of the rapid pace, less-experienced PHC teams sometimes have trouble writing down points and responding effectively.
Midwest and southern states are slower and more big-picture oriented, which is easier for PHC to start the season.
In addition to placing in the open division, PHC also claimed four of the six speaking awards, with Snyder receiving first place speaker award.
