Rutgers 9th at Nationals to Close Record-Breaking Season

The euphoric RUDU contingent after the announcement that Ashley Novak & Chris Bergman were in the break at the National Championships. Rutgers qualified a record seven debaters for the Championships this year, enabling five full teams to attend. Left to right: Storey Clayton, Russell Potter, Henry Phipps, David Reiss, Ashley Novak, Adam Bomeisl, Bhargavi Sriram, Chris Bergman, Deepta Janardhan, Alex Jubb, Rachel Moon, Nisha Kumar, Quinn Maingi, Sean Leonard, Gordon Morrisette, and Chris Baia.

The 3rd-ranked Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) took 9th place at the National Championships to close the most successful year in Rutgers debate history.

Ashley Novak & Chris Bergman, in Bergman’s last tournament, posted a 5-1 record in preliminary rounds en route to advancing to the elimination rounds as the sixth seed in the tournament. They dropped on a 2-1 decision in octofinals to the eventual finalists from Syracuse University.

Here are the full accomplishments from Nationals this year for RUDU:
Ashley Novak & Chris Bergman – 9th Team
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb – 23rd Team
Ashley Novak – 11th Speaker
Chris Bergman – 24th Speaker
Sean Leonard – 5th Novice Speaker

Leonard received a plaque for his novice speaker finish, capping a year where he finished 4th Novice of the Year (NOTY). Novak just missed a plaque on adjusted speaker points, a high-level tie-breaker. She was tied with both the 10th and 12th speakers before tie-breakers.

Ashley Novak gestures in her speech in octofinals at the National Championships last weekend.

The awards for Novak and Bergman as a team, Novak as a speaker, and Leonard as a novice speaker were all Rutgers records for the APDA National Championships. Below, at the bottom of this post, is a list of school records set by RUDU on APDA this year.

Chris Bergman delivers his Senior Speech, a farewell to the debate league, on Saturday night before being announced as one of the breaking teams.

Chris Bergman and Bhargavi Sriram also delivered Senior Speeches at the Nationals Banquet on Saturday night shortly before the Rutgers break was announced. Both thanked those who had helped them along the way to their success and friendships in the debate league. Bergman specifically also focused on the importance of taking issues of equity for female and minority debaters seriously.

TEAM RECORDS SET BY RUTGERS IN 2012-2013

Standing/Ranking	2012-2013 Record Set	Previous Record
College of the Year (COTY)	3rd	5th (2010-2011)
Debaters Qualified for Nationals	7 – Ashley Novak, Adam Bomeisl, Russell Potter, Chris Bergman, Quinn Maingi, Alex Jubb, Sean Leonard	5 (2010-2011) – David Reiss, Kyle Bomeisl, Chris Bergman, Ashley Novak, Farhan Ali
Nationals Team Standings	9th – Ashley Novak & Chris Bergman	15th (2010-2011) – Kyle Bomeisl & David Reiss
Nationals Speaker Standings	11th – Ashley Novak	16th (2010-2011) – Kyle Bomeisl
Nationals Novice Speaker Standings	5th- Sean Leonard	10th (2011-2012) – Quinn Maingi
North Americans Speaker Standings	4th – Ashley Novak	Unknown
Varsity Breaks, Season	41	27 (2010-2011)
Semifinals Appearances, Season	11	10 (2010-2011)
Quarterfinals Appearances, Season	28	24 (2010-2011)
Consecutive Varsity Break Weekends	14 (current)	Unknown
Entrants on Speaker of the Year (SOTY) Rankings	10 – Ashley Novak, Sean Leonard, Chris Bergman, Quinn Maingi, Russell Potter, Alex Jubb, Henry Phipps, Kurt Falk, Adam Bomeisl	5 (2010-2011) – David Reiss, Kyle Bomeisl, Farhan Ali, Ashley Novak, Krishna Kavi
Top Speaker Awards, Season	2 – Sean Leonard, Quinn Maingi	1 (Multiple Years) – Farhan Ali (2010-2011), Chris Bergman (2011-2012)
Top Ten Speaker Awards, Season	33	24 (2010-2011)

Rutgers 3rd and 6th at Last Tournament of Year, Clinches 3rd Ranking for 2012-2013

The Rutgers contingent celebrates the close of the year at the Bryn Mawr tournament, hosted by Swarthmore. Left to right: Arbi Llaveshi, Rachel Moon, Kyle Bomeisl, Storey Clayton, Sean Leonard, Alex Jubb, Gabi Cozzolino, Quinn Maingi, Chris Bergman, Henry Phipps, Jason Boyle, Denise Costanzo, Chris Baia, and Ilana Rice (from Columbia University, who debated with Chris Bergman).

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) placed two teams in the top six at the Byrn Mawr tournament (hosted by Swarthmore), closing the year with the third overall ranking in the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA). Rutgers finished more than fifty points in the College of the Year (COTY) rankings ahead of 4th ranked Johns Hopkins University, 5th ranked Harvard University, and 6th ranked University of Chicago.

Here are the official results from Bryn Mawr 2013:
Chris Bergman & Ilana Rice [Columbia] – 3rd Team
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb – 6th Team
Denise Costanzo & Daniel Takash [Johns Hopkins] – 5th Novice Team
Sean Leonard – 4th Novice Speaker

With the speaker award, Sean Leonard clinched the 4th overall ranking in the Novice of the Year (NOTY) rankings as well. He joins Quinn Maingi (3rd in 2011-2012) and Ashley Novak (2nd in 2010-2011) as current RUDU members with top five NOTY finishes in their first year on APDA.

Meanwhile, Denise Costanzo broke to novice outrounds in her very first tournament of her APDA career. She and her partner finished 5th overall as a result of the top novice team advancing to varsity quarterfinals, opening up a spot for them in novice semifinals.

Rutgers was the only state school in the top ten of the rankings, with only three other state universities finishing in the top twenty-five. The others were #18 William & Mary, #20 Maryland, and #25 Albany. Rutgers finished ahead of all but one Ivy League school (#1 Yale), eclipsing #5 Harvard, #8 Brown, #9 Columbia, #10 Princeton, #21 Dartmouth, #22 Cornell, and unranked Penn.

Here are the final top twenty-five rankings of APDA for 2012-2013:

Rank	College/University	Points
1	Yale University	757
2	Brandeis University	487
3	Rutgers University	257
4	Johns Hopkins University	199
5	Harvard University	193.5
6	University of Chicago	187.75
7	Swarthmore College	171
8	Brown University	148.5
9	Columbia University	123.5
10	Princeton University	97
11	George Washington University	91
12	Bates College	88
13	Smith College	77.5
14	New York University	77
15	American University	75
15	Syracuse University	75
17	Boston University	58.5
18	College of William and Mary	33
19	Stanford University	30
20	University of Maryland	19.5
21	Dartmouth College	16
22	Cornell University	12
23	Massachusettes Institute of Technology	9
24	Middlebury College	2
25	University at Albany	1

The National Championships will be held at the University of Maryland this weekend, Friday through Sunday. Rutgers is sending a school-record five teams to Nationals, with seven individual debaters qualified. Senior Chris Bergman, juniors Ashley Novak, Adam Bomeisl, and Alex Jubb, sophomores Quinn Maingi and Russell Potter, and freshman Sean Leonard will be attending as qualified debaters. They will be joined by senior Nisha Kumar and juniors Gordon Morrisette and Deepta Janardhan in representing Rutgers at Nationals.

Rutgers 7th at Brandeis, Debates Health Ethics at UMDNJ

The Rutgers contingent at Brandeis gathers after the narrow 3-2 loss in quarterfinals at the huge Brandeis tournament. Left to right: Adam Bomeisl, Henry Phipps, Storey Clayton, Alex Jubb, Ashley Novak, Jason Boyle, Chris Bergman, Phil Davidar, Rachel Moon, Nick Hansen, George Alukal, Kai Rau, Russell Potter, Nisha Kumar, Sean Leonard, Quinn Maingi, and Stine-Oksana Soomai.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) ran its break streak to thirteen weekends and padded the lead for 3rd place in the College of the Year (COTY) standings with an octofinal win and quarterfinal appearance for Ashley Novak & Chris Bergman at Brandeis last weekend.

Here are the official accomplishments from Brandeis:
Chris Bergman & Ashley Novak – 7th Team
Ashley Novak – 9th Speaker

Bergman & Novak lost the narrowest quarterfinal decision to a team from Yale. Yale remains cemented in 1st place in the COTY standings with host Brandeis 2nd. However, Rutgers gained 7 more points over Johns Hopkins and Harvard this weekend, extending the lead for 3rd place with one regular-season weekend remaining. Rutgers’ lead over the two schools and the University of Chicago, which has been rising through the ranks in the last month, is all but insurmountable in the last weekend before the National Championships at the University of Maryland.

Rutgers will be sending five full teams to Nationals with its seven qualifications this year, both team records. The final squad will be announced this week, but will certainly consist of qualified debaters Novak, Bergman, Russell Potter, Adam Bomeisl, Quinn Maingi, Alex Jubb, and Sean Leonard.

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On Monday afternoon, Nisha Kumar and Sean Leonard debated Alex Jubb and Bhargavi Sriram on the topic of whether it was ethical to ration certain healthcare procedures for some to ensure more complete healthcare access for all. Kumar & Leonard took the Government position that it was ethical, while Jubb & Sriram opposed. The debate was held in the West Lecture Hall of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Attended by over fifty UMDNJ students, the debate was lively and spirited and introduced by RUDU alumnus Kevin Parks ’11, a current UMDNJ medical student.

UMDNJ will be merging with Rutgers over the summer to become the Rutgers Medical School. The debate was the first in what will hopefully become a larger series of debates on healthcare policy and biomedical ethics in partnership between Rutgers Med and the Debate Union.

Rutgers Breaks Varsity at Swat, Novice at UConn

The small RUDU contingent at Swarthmore College, where Chris Bergman broke for the fourth time in his last five tournaments. Left to right: Deepta Janardhan, Quinn Maingi, Kyle Bomeisl, Sean Leonard, Chris Bergman, and Chris Baia.

The larger contingent of RUDU at the University of Connecticut, where Rutgers made the novice break for the first time since NYU. Left to right: Kai Rau, Leland Perice, Gabi Cozzolino, Becky Ratero, Storey Clayton, Alex Jubb, Rachel Moon, Gordon Morrisette, Nisha Kumar, Adam Bomeisl, Ashley Novak, Henry Phipps, and Russell Potter.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) extended its varsity break streak to twelve weekends at Swarthmore and made the novice break for the first time in nearly two months at UConn as it maintained its third overall ranking in the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) standings. Meanwhile, this standing has gotten increased notoriety with a front-page article on the Rutgers website, featuring interviews with Coach Storey Clayton and former President Chris Bergman.

Bergman broke for the fourth time in five weekends he’s competed, this time with Quinn Maingi. Despite breaking as the sixth seed, they dropped in partial octofinals and finished ninth overall. Meanwhile, in Connecticut, Gabi Cozzolino and Becky Ratero made novice semifinals for their first career break, dropping a close decision to finish 4th novice team.

Here are the official results:

SWARTHMORE
Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi – 9th Team
Chris Bergman – 10th Speaker
Sean Leonard – 5th Novice Speaker

UCONN
Ashley Novak & Henry Phipps – 10th Team
Ashley Novak – 10th Speaker
Gabi Cozzolino & Becky Ratero – 4th Novice Team
Gabi Cozzolino – 8th Novice Speaker

Ratero was competing in just her second career tournament and Cozzolino made the novice speaker rankings and break for the first time in only her fourth career tournament. The second-semester recruits carried the banner for the squad at the University of Connecticut after Novak and Phipps missed the varsity break by a mere two ranks, one of the closest possible tiebreakers.

Two weekends remain in the regular season before Rutgers sends at least five teams to the APDA National Championships, to be held April 19-21 at the University of Maryland. This weekend features competitions at both Brandeis and the University of Virginia, both of which Rutgers will attend.

A screenshot of the current front page of the Rutgers University website (rutgers.edu), featuring the headline article under News on the Debate Union.

RUDU Breaks at BU, Novak Elected Vice President of Operations for League

The RUDU contingent at BU gathers for a photo after octofinals. Left to right: Gordon Morrisette, Adam Bomeisl, Russell Potter, Archana Babu, Leland Perice, Kai Rau, Daimler Vadlamuri, Gabi Cozzolino, Alex Jubb, Katerina Dimitrusheva, Storey Clayton, Ashley Novak, Amanda Gaetano, Rachel Moon, Kyle Bomeisl, Nisha Kumar, Sean Leonard, Maxwell Williams, Arbi Llaveshi, George Alukal, Stine-Oksana Soomai, Quinn Maingi, Deepta Janardhan, and Nick Hansen.

A file photo of the preparations for the semifinals at American University involving Ashley Novak (second from left) and Sean Leonard (far right), along with former President Chris Bergman (far left) and Coach Storey Clayton (second from right). The duo of Novak and Leonard broke again this weekend.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) broke at its eleventh straight weekend of competition with an octofinals appearance for Ashley Novak & Sean Leonard. The junior/freshman duo have broken both times they’ve competed, after finishing 3rd at the American University pro-ams last semester.

Here are the official results from Boston University this weekend:
Ashley Novak & Sean Leonard – 16th Team
Sean Leonard – 5th Novice Speaker
Gabi Cozzolino & Katerina Dimitrusheva – 8th Novice Team

Friday night featured elections for the Executive Board of the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA), the debate league in which RUDU competes. Ashley Novak, currently a member of the six-person Board, was elected to the second highest position on the Board, the Vice President of Operations. She is joined by debaters from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Bates, and George Washington on the 2013-2014 Board. She has been the only debater from a state school on the Board for each of the last two years.

Rutgers overall remains ranked 3rd by a wide margin in the APDA rankings with three weekends to go before the National Championships. RUDU teams are attending both the Swarthmore College and University of Connecticut tournaments this weekend.

Rutgers 3rd at William & Mary, Varsity Break Streak at Ten Weekends

Rutgers debaters gather on the steps of William and Mary’s Washington Hall after taking 3rd at the tournament. RUDU has been in the varsity elimination rounds at 5 of the last 6 W&M contests and won the novice division at the other one. Left to right: Maxwell Williams, Quinn Maingi, Deepta Janardhan, Adam Bomeisl, Russell Potter, Storey Clayton, Leland Perice, George Alukal, Katerina Dimitrusheva, Isaac Woodward, Alex Jubb, Henry Phipps, Rachel Moon, Chris Baia, Sean Leonard, Abbe Ramanan [AU], Kurt Girard [AU], and Gordon Morrisette. Not pictured: Chris Bergman. Ramanan debated with Morrisette and her teammate Girard wanted to crash the team picture. You can imagine him as Bergman.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) broke to semifinals at the William & Mary tournament this past weekend, marking the second consecutive semifinal appearance for the team of Chris Bergman & Sean Leonard. The senior/freshman duo made the elimination rounds with a 4-1 record and defeated Smith College in the quarterfinals before falling to a hybrid team from Harvard and Hopkins in the semis.

Here are the full results for Rutgers’ trip to the second W&M tournament of the season:
Chris Bergman & Sean Leonard – 3rd Team
Sean Leonard – 2nd Novice Speaker
Katerina Dimitrusheva – 10th Novice Speaker

The novice speaker award for Dimitrusheva came in her first-ever tournament for RUDU, wherein she and her second-year partner won 3 of 5 rounds, all over some excellent competition. Her team (consisting of Dimitrusheva and Leland Perice) and the semifinalists of Bergman & Leonard were the only teams to defeat the eventual tournament champions.

Despite the high speaker award, Leonard slipped back to 3rd overall in the Novice of the Year (NOTY) standings for first-year debaters. He is attempting to follow in the footsteps of former RUDU novices Ashley Novak (2nd in 2010-2011) and Quinn Maingi (3rd in 2011-2012) with a top three finish in these rankings. This weekend’s contest at Boston University is likely to be the largest of the remaining regular season and could vault Leonard to within range of first were he to finish highly there.

RUDU remains secure in its position as 3rd overall team in the country, riding a streak of ten consecutive weekends of competition where they have earned a spot in the varsity elimination rounds. Rutgers stands at 249 points in the College of the Year (COTY) standings, with Johns Hopkins (198 points) trailing and Harvard and the University of Chicago (183.5 points each) tied for fifth.

Rutgers Misses Break Due to Tab Error at West Point

Alex Jubb and Henry Phipps at the West Point banquet, just before they were incorrectly left out of the break announcement.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) had several teams with winning records at the West Point, but one of them was announced as 9th team and actually finished 8th. They earned a spot in the quarterfinals, but were mis-tabbed as just outside of them. The error was caught too late to fix the pairings, but they were acknowledged as the 8th place team and will receive ranking points as though they’d been in quarterfinals.

The team in question was Alex Jubb and Henry Phipps, frequent partners last year, giving each of them a streak of consecutive weekends in which they earned a spot in the varsity break.

Here are the awards from this weekend:
Alex Jubb & Henry Phipps – 8th Team
Chris Bergman – 10th Speaker
Sean Leonard – 3rd Novice Speaker

RUDU also appeared on the front page of the Daily Targum yesterday for passing Harvard and Johns Hopkins to take 3rd overall in the national rankings, a place RUDU still holds.

The March 4th Targum, featuring RUDU as the top headline.

This weekend will be Rutgers’ turn to host a tournament, the 13th annual Rutgers Invitational. About sixty teams from across the east coast and Chicago are expected to attend.

Rutgers Wins Albany, 3rd at F&M, Surges Past Harvard and Hopkins to 3rd in Nation

The jubilant crowd of Rutgers debaters after the announcement of Rutgers winning their second tournament this season. Debaters are displaying their Albany-themed glasses that were given as awards. Left to right: Gabi Cozzolino, Deepta Janardhan, Raynee Morris, Henry Phipps, Kyle Bomeisl, Adam Bomeisl, Quinn Maingi, Alex Jubb, Storey Clayton, Arbi Llaveshi, Russell Potter, Jason Boyle, Nisha Kumar, and Rachel Moon

The small contingent of RUDU at F&M after taking 3rd place there. The tournament theme was Dr. Seuss. Left to right: Brian Olivares, George Alukal, Chris Bergman, Sean Leonard, and Chris Baia.

In what was almost certainly the best weekend of all-time for Rutgers debate, the Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) won the University of Albany tournament, took 3rd place at the Franklin and Marshall College tournament, placed 6th and 8th as well at Albany, qualified three debaters for Nationals, and surged past Harvard and Johns Hopkins to take sole possession of the 3rd ranking in the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) standings.

Quinn Maingi and Alex Jubb both qualified for Nationals by winning the University of Albany tournament after breaking top seed with an undefeated 5-0 record, the only team to accomplish that at the tournament. They then defeated a team from Brandeis in semifinals and Smith in finals to win the second tournament this season for Rutgers, after Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter won Vassar in December. That team finished 8th at Albany and remains ranked 12th overall partnership in the league. Quinn Maingi also became the fourth Rutgers debater ever to win a top speaker award with the top prize at Albany, joining Farhan Ali, Chris Bergman, and Sean Leonard (at Vassar in December) in the feat.

Meanwhile, at Franklin and Marshall College, Bergman and Leonard also broke top seed with an undefeated 5-0 record, losing a narrow decision in semifinals to Swarthmore after winning quarterfinals. They finished the tournament third and were both in the top five varsity speakers, with novice Leonard taking the top speaker award in that category. Leonard also qualified for the National Championships to be held this April with the semifinal appearance, his second of the year after joining Ashley Novak in semis at American University last fall.

The performances brought a bevy of ranking points for the annual College of the Year (COTY) rankings, the system APDA uses to rank whole teams on a week-to-week and overall season basis. Going into the weekend 4.5 points behind 3rd place Harvard and 9 points behind 4th place Johns Hopkins, RUDU put up an unbelievable 60.5 points while Harvard received 2 and Hopkins 0.

This cements Rutgers as by far the 3rd place team in the nation, behind only #1 Yale and #2 Brandeis. While Yale is unreachable, a conversation about chasing Brandeis may be beginning for this year, with the Massachusetts school about 90 points ahead of Rutgers. That’s a large sum (Rutgers’ current total is 237.5 points), but weekends like this are making the team believe.

Here are the official accomplishments at this weekend’s tournaments:

ALBANY
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb – Tournament Champions
Henry Phipps & Deepta Janardhan – 6th Team
Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter – 8th Team
Quinn Maingi – Top Speaker
Henry Phipps – 4th Speaker
Adam Bomeisl – 5th Speaker
Russell Potter – 7th Speaker

FRANKLIN & MARSHALL
Chris Bergman & Sean Leonard – 3rd Team
Chris Bergman – 4th Speaker
Sean Leonard – 5th Speaker
Sean Leonard – Top Novice Speaker

The break to quarterfinals at Albany was the first varsity break for Phipps and Janardhan, the first break of any kind in Janardhan’s career. While seven Rutgers debaters have now qualified for Nationals, seven more are now in progress to that feat with some points earned toward qualification. Phipps and Janardhan are joined by Gordon Morrisette, Kurt Falk, Nisha Kumar, Arbi Llaveshi, and Bhargavi Sriram as having points on the board for RUDU. Morrisette is just a half-point shy of qualification, while most others have a ways to go.

The six varsity speaker awards for Rutgers are also a school record on a weekend and puts a team-high-extending nine debaters on the Speaker of the Year (SOTY) rankings. Novak, RUDU’s entrant in the top ten speakers in the country, took this remarkable weekend off to celebrate her birthday, but is now joined by Maingi and Phipps in the rankings, alongside Leonard, Bergman, Potter, Jubb, Falk, and Bomeisl. While Novak took the weekend off for her birthday, Jubb actually won the Albany tournament on the day of her 21st birthday, her first varsity tournament win ever.

RUDU is now a safe 51.5 points ahead of 4th place Johns Hopkins and 54 points above 5th place Harvard in the national rankings. While not an insurmountable lead for those chasing schools, Rutgers’ entire team is still able to contribute to the final rankings, while its rivals have debaters who are “capped” and have contributed their maximum number of points, making it likely that RUDU has secured the 3rd ranking (or above) for good.

The season has seven regular-season weekends remaining before the 2013 National Championships, to be held this year at the University of Maryland. Rutgers will host its annual Invitational on March 8-9, at which Rutgers cannot compete. Rival Brandeis will host its tournament on April 5-6, at which it will not be competing. The Yale, Hopkins, and Harvard tournaments were all last semester.

This weekend’s upcoming contest for RUDU will be at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.

Three Rutgers Teams Break at Princeton

File photos of the three Rutgers teams who made the top 15 at Princeton. Upper left: Adam Bomeisl & Kyle Bomeisl. Upper right: Ashley Novak & Russell Potter. Lower left: Quinn Maingi & Chris Bergman. Lower right: the Princeton campus.

Extending their varsity break streak to seven weekends, the Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) broke three teams at the last New Jersey tournament of the year before the one Rutgers hosts in early March. The pairings of Ashley Novak & Russell Potter, Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi, and Adam Bomeisl & Kyle Bomeisl all made the octofinals, with Novak & Potter advancing to quarterfinals.

Here are the official results:
Ashley Novak & Russell Potter – 8th Team
Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi – 11th Team
Adam Bomeisl & Kyle Bomeisl – 15th Team
Chris Bergman – 9th Speaker
Sean Leonard & Raynee Morris – 5th Novice Team

This was the first time a full team from Rutgers ever broke at Princeton and tied an oft-reached record of three varsity teams in the elimination rounds at a single tournament for RUDU.

Despite earning points for these finishes, RUDU remains ranked 5th overall in the national team rankings, but narrowed the gap with both 3rd place Johns Hopkins and 4th place Harvard. Princeton remains ranked 9th overall. Rutgers will be splitting between the tournaments at Franklin & Marshall and Albany this weekend, both expected to be relatively small in comparison to this weekend’s major contest at Princeton.

Rutgers stands at 177 points in the overall cumulative national standings. Harvard is 4.5 points ahead and Hopkins is 9 points ahead. With several debaters on the verge of qualifying for Nationals, Rutgers could easily overtake either or both this weekend.

Rutgers Novices Shine at NYU

File photos of the three RUDU novices who excelled at NYU this past weekend during the winter storm that hit the Northeast. Left to right: Sean Leonard, Stine-Oksana Soomai, and George Alukal.

Braving the snowy near-blizzard conditions that hit New York and much of the Northeast United States, a handful of teams went to NYU to represent the Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) this past weekend. Sean Leonard’s partner dropped at the last minute, but he wound up in the varsity break with a GW senior. Meanwhile, Stine-Oksana Soomai and George Alukal made their first novice break this year in George’s second-ever tournament. The pair dropped their novice outround after breaking as the top novice seed.

Here are the official results:
Sean Leonard & Dan Cobos [George Washington University] – 14th Team
Stine-Oksana Soomai & George Alukal – 5th Novice Team
Sean Leonard – 4th Novice Speaker
Stine-Oksana Soomai – 8th Novice Speaker

The varsity break is the third for Leonard this year and helps maintain RUDU’s varsity break streak at six consecutive tournaments. Meanwhile, this tournament represents a break-out for Stine-Oksana Soomai, who won her first novice team and speaker awards.

Just before departing for the tournament, Rutgers debaters were treated to word that the team had appeared in the Daily Targum, Rutgers’ student newspaper, for a second time in a week. The Friday article detailed the Wednesday night public debate that was attended by nearly 200 students and faculty. The article was the sixth Targum piece on RUDU this school year.

Rutgers remains fifth in the league overall at present, just behind Johns Hopkins and Harvard and decently ahead of the University of Chicago, who is sixth. The team has a very good chance of finishing ahead of the two schools it is most closely chasing at present, with more depth than either team and several debaters on the verge of qualifying for Nationals. This weekend features a trip just down the road to Princeton University.