Niles West Debate Team Wins Two Titles At Tournament

The Niles West High School Debate Team continues its impressive record of performance at competitions. The following is from District 219. 

The Niles West Debate Team competed November 8 and 9 at the Mustang Invitational hosted by Morgan Park High School in Chicago and won the championship in both divisions.

Seventeen teams from Niles West competed at the tournament. In the Varsity division, Niles West entered seven teams. Three teams advanced to the elminiation rounds. Lizzie Prete and Sana Khan had a 5-0 record in the preliminary rounds and were the second seed entering the elimination rounds. In the finals, they beat a team from Maine East High School on a 3-0 decision and earned the championship. Tahir Meeks and Alwin Alex had a 5-0 record in the preliminary rounds as well and were the third seed. In the Semifinal round, their teammates Prete and Khan advanced over them. Soretti Donka and Justina Jude had a 4-1 record in the prelims and were the fourth seed entering the elimination rounds. They lost to a Maine East team in the Semifinals. Samantha Seo and Alex Brown had a 4-1 record in the prelims as well and were in the top 16 teams at the tournament.

Out of 128 debaters, Faith Geraghty was first speaker, Soretti Donka was second, and Sana Khan was fifth. Other debaters competing in Varsity were Simon Berdes, Willy Sargool, Natalia Bafia, Sahar Jiwani and Henry Meinke.

Ten Niles West teams competed in the Novice division. There were 83 teams debating in this division. Kosta Hatzopoulos and Emily Silber had a 4-1 record in the preliminary rounds, and beat teams from Lane Tech, Ogden and Walter Payton in order to be crowned the champions of the Novice division.

Out of 166 debaters, Emily Silber was awarded eighth speaker and Rida Yousuf was awarded 11th speaker. Other debaters included Turner Mullarkey, Venus Bahary, Eugene Chung, Miriam Murad, Anwar Khan, Kayla Brill, Nina Saro, Amanda Vlamakis, Ashley Okezie, Lena Grossman, Siraj Patel, Johnathon Rivera, Mustafa Khan, Jamie Suh, Chris Adams, and Jackie Reis.

The Head Coach for Niles West Debate is Eric Oddo. Assistant coaches are Matthew Fahrenbacher, Melanie Johnson, Kevin Bancroft, Val McIntosh and Tyler Salathe.

Niles West Debate Coach Eric Oddo was recently selected by the Illinois High School Association’s Speech and Debate Committee to serve in the tabulation room for the Varsity State Debate Tournament held in March 2014.

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