After two days of debating at Garden City on Jan. 17 and 18, the varsity debate team came back home with a 4-speaker state championship, bringing down the previous reigning champions, Washburn Rural, to finish their 2024-2025 season strong.
The championship winning 4-speaker team consisted of seniors Anwen Williams, Gilly Falin, Cooper Elo, Nathan Peltier, Cooper Hefty and junior Breahna Randall.
Reflecting on how the season ended, Elo said they emphasize the hard work the team underwent to reach the level of becoming state champions. With countless hours of practicing, they were able to end the eight year streak of Washburn Rural, who placed 2nd overall, and won 27 out of the 36 ballots from KSHSAA state judges.
“I liked beating Washburn Rural, and ending their streak felt the best,” Elo said.
Despite the team’s preparation, Falin said that they still had to endure through unpredictable obstacles set for them throughout the tournament. The tournament entailed 12 rounds of debating in which the team won 10 overall.
“[We] felt prepared going in because of the work that assistant coach [Michael] Shelton had put in over the course of the season, but there were still unpredictable aspects that were stressful during the tournament itself,” Falin said. “I’m glad we came, glad we won, glad it’s over.”
However, the win took longer than just this season. The team has been working together for three years, and Peltier said that it made their victory a lot more sentimental. Having been part of the debate program for four years of his high school career, Peltier reflected on the hard work behind the scenes for this group of debaters.
“I felt the culmination of the work the entire four speaker squad had been doing not just this year, but for the past four years and it was nice to see that commitment pay off at state,” Peltier said.
Next door, junior Lena Haisuk and sophomore Carter Fite made waves in the 2-Speaker category. Haisuk and Fite prepared for months and to get to the octo-finals the team said it was a huge accomplishment.
“It was really cool to get to octo-finals because it was a big goal for Carter and I,” Haisuk said.
Unlike previous years and divisions, the pool included multiple nationally ranked teams. Although this added to the team’s stress, they didn’t let it bring them down, according to Haisuk. In one round, the duo beat the reigning state champs from Blue Valley North.
“It was cool to beat the state champs in round one of prelims because Carter and I have put so much work into adapting to different judge paradigms.” Haisuk said. “So starting the tournament with a win over that team was awesome,”
As the debate season concluded, these students will set their focus on the forensics season with aims for a sixth consecutive championship in the spring.
