Niles West Freshman Named Top Debater

The Niles West Debate Team continues to garner accolades as the debate season winds down.

The team competed at the Great Midwestern Novice and Junior Varsity Debate Championships at Iowa City West High School on April 5 through 7. Niles West sent 24 debaters to the competition, 14 in the Junior Varsity division and 10 in the Novice division.

Freshman debater Soretti Donka was named the number-one overall speaker in the Novice division.

Forty-eight teams from the Midwest competed in the Novice division. Soretti Donka and Justina Jude went 4-2 in the preliminary rounds, and advanced all the way to the semifinals before losing on a 2-1 decision. Rebecca Harbeck and Samantha Seo were 5-1 in the preliminary rounds and advanced to the Semifinals where they were defeated by a team that ultimately won the championship.

Out of 96 debaters, Donka was ranked the best speaker and Jude was the 10th best speaker. Willy Sargool competed individually due to his partner’s illness and had a 4-2 record. He could not advance to the elimination rounds because he debated alone. Also competing were Simon Berdes, Atul Krishna, Mintra Osmin and Natalia Bafia. Niles West Varsity debaters Vinay Patel, Kris Trivedi and Sana Khan judged for Niles West and were supportive coaches for the novice debaters.

Thirty-two teams from the Midwest competed in the Junior Varsity division, with Niles West sending a total of seven teams.

Other notables -

Janata Ahmed and Nathan Anderson went 4-2 in the preliminary rounds and advanced to the Quarterfinals as the fourth seed. Unfortunately, they lost to the team that would win the championship. Walter Lindwall and Julia Sarata were 5-1 and advanced to the Quarterfinals as the second seed, before being bested by a team from Des Moines Roosevelt High School. Gershom Chan and Nick Charles were 4-2 and were the sixth seed entering the Quarterfinals but lost to a team from St. Paul Central High School.

Out of 64 debaters, Gershom Chan was third best speaker, Miranda Kang was fourth best speaker, Janat Ahmed was sixth speaker, Walter Lindwall was eighth speaker and Nathan Anderson was ninth speaker. Also competeing were Michelle Sproat, Alex Brown, Lizzie Prete, Alwin Alex, James McLellan, Sahar Jiwani and Rexa Khan.

Niles West debaters Theo Noparstak and Jonass Placitis will compete in the Varsity post-season tournaments at the National Debate Coaches Association Championships in Nashville, TN, the Tournament of Champions in Lexington, KY and the National Forensic League National Championship in Birmingham, AL.

Niles West Debate’s Head Coach is Eric Oddo. He is assisted by Matt Fahrenbacher, Melanie Johnson, Kevin Bancroft and Val McIntosh.

See our other debate coverage

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