Soaring Eagle debate team wraps up its winning season

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The Juan Diego Catholic High School debate team celebrates its third straight 3A State Championship and sixth straight Region championship. Courtesy photo/JDCHS

DRAPER — The Juan Diego Catholic High School debate team won its third straight title in the 3A State Tournament at Weber State University March 8-9. Juan Diego also won the Region 10 debate title for the sixth year in a row.

"We are proud of the students and it’s really exciting for them to be part of a winning legacy," said Moses Baca, the team’s co-coach.

Juan Diego seniors Ryan Keenan and Sean Williams qualified to compete at the National Tournament of Champions in Kentucky the first weekend of May.

Judge Memorial Catholic High School also received special recognition at the 3A State Tournament at Weber State. Judge Memorial senior Jack Lundeen received recognition in Impromptu; freshmen Sean Lambourne and Manny Condas in Congress; and Public Forum teams of sophomore Saylor Soinski and junior Jared Maffuccio, and senior Grady Nilsen and senior Emiliano Mendez, reached the finals.

This year’s state title was a challenge for Juan Diego because almost two-thirds of their championship team graduated last year, said Josh Clark, Juan Diego co-coach. "This year we had seven first-year debate students on our team of 25 members," he said.

Baca credits the success of the Juan Diego debate team to the effort and support of the community.

"Debate is an academic activity that gives students the opportunity to be judged head to head based on their skills and knowledge," he said, adding that the students apply what they’ve learned in other classes to their debates, where they are judged against their peers from other schools. "The parent community helps by donating time, money, judging at tournaments, preparing food for the tournaments, and hosting the tournaments. The teachers are willing to accommodate the students when they travel to debate tournaments by allowing them time out of the classroom and time to make up school work."

Dr. Galey Colosimo, principal of Juan Diego, puts an emphasis on the importance of public speaking and debate in the formation of the students, said Clark. "Also, the students put in a lot of time and hard work in the seven different debates at each event."

In the debate classroom, the students at Juan Diego have the opportunity to research, write and practice their speeches, said Baca.

"We have a number of students who also prepare outside of school hours for the tournament without taking the class," said Baca. "The students listen to each other; they play an active role in watching and critiquing each other’s speeches and in a sense become coaches for one another. Debate prepares students to communicate well for many professions."

There are three debate events: The policy debate is technical, research intensive; the Lincoln-Douglas debate is one-on-one value oriented; and the public forum is a debate for the masses. The individual events are mock congress, impromptu speaking, original oratory speaking and extemporaneous speaking, or political commentary.

In addition to the team success, individual Juan Diego students placed in the tournament.

In policy debate the team of senior Ryan Keenan and sophomore Alex Zmyslo and the team of sophomore Michael McIntyre and junior Dylan Frederick were quarter finalists. Junior Andrew Hayes and Zmyslo were semifinalists. Senior Sean Williams and sophomore Gabe Lewis won second place.

Juan Diego senior Erik Tita was the state champion in original oratory and senior Carson Bruggeman won third place; junior Madalene Caldwell is the state champion in impromptu and senior Steven Katsohirakis won third place.

Senior Emma Purvance won second place in the Lincoln-Douglas debate; sophomore Jordan Reninger was a finalist in the national extemporaneous and sophomore Megha Kundra won second place in foreign extemporaneous.