This past weekend, the Clark Speech and Debate team competed in another tournament at Rancho High School. Over one thousand students from schools across Las Vegas competed this weekend, making it the largest tournament of the year so far.

“The Clark High School Speech and Debate team has made incredible strides this year,” says Clark’s Speech and Debate President Manushri Desai, 12. “We’ve won a handful of tournament sweepstakes this year, at the Desert Oasis High School Invitational, Green Valley High School Invitational, and recently, at the Rancho HS Invitational.”

Here are some highlights from the tournament:

In novice program oral interpretation (POI), John Wherry placed sixth and Caroline Bilbray-Kohn placed fourth. In varsity POI, Kanokwan Tungkitkancharoen placed fifth and Jaiya McMillan placed fourth.

In novice informative, Erin Keene placed third.

In novice foreign extemporaneous, Liam Cootey placed sixth.

In novice domestic extemporaneous, Sophia Adams placed second.

In Dramatic Interpretation novice Devika Bararia placed fifth, varsity Katherine Van Voorhis placed third, and varsity Manushri Desai placed second.

In Duo Interpretation, the varsity team of Meghana Veeramachaneni and Opalina Vetrichelvan placed fourth.

In Congress, novices Sahi Chundu and Dilan Perrera placed third and sixth, respectively. Junior varsity Katherine Van Voorhis placed sixth.

In novice Lincoln Douglas (LD), Aisha Sanwal and Daniel Lok tied for third while Sophia Adams tied for first. In junior varsity LD, Katie Wang and Jaiden Reddy tied for first and third, respectively. Seniors Solomon Siu and Aakash Shah tied for third in varsity LD.

In novice public forum, the team of Erin Keene and Colleen Keene tied for 3rd, and the team of Divij Kodi and Ayan Patel made it to the quarterfinal round.

Overall, Clark placed fourth in large schools’ sweepstakes, adding yet another large trophy to their growing collection.

“Our ever-growing team has put forth an unprecedented performance thus far in the season,” says Desai. “In both speech and debate events, we’ve already had six students qualify for the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions tournament this May,” says Desai.  “I am honored to represent the Clark HS Speech and Debate Team as President for the 2017-18 school year and am confident that our welcoming family will only continue to grow and succeed in the upcoming years.”