Bells Speech and Debate team members competed during the weekend of October 16-19 with back-to-back openings of all three of their initial league tournaments of the season. Given the current pandemic, tournaments continue to be virtual competitions.
“The coaches are all stunned at how well the Bells performed in speech,” noted Aaron Langerman ‘11, Speech and Debate coach. “It’s a testament to how much the program has grown: back in 2017, I entered 67 individuals at League 1. Four years later, at these opening league tournaments this weekend, we had 126 individuals entered! Moreover, this weekend we accumulated the largest number of wildcards and had the greatest number of students break to elimination rounds of any team in the league.”
The results are as follows:
Congressional Debate: Congress swept 5/6 of the total wildcards at the tournament. Coach Langerman notes that this is, “Really impressive work, especially for a team that is being led and coached by our junior captains Veer and Jason.”
- Veer Juneja ’22 – 2nd place in the Senate – wildcard earned
- Jason Cappelloni ’22 – 1st place in House Chamber #1 – wildcard earned
- Ben Gleixner ’23 – 2nd place in House Chamber #1
- Rishi Dinesh ’23 – 1st place in House Chamber #2 – wildcard earned
- Saket Budhia ’22 – 1st place in House Chamber #3 – wildcard earned
- Michael Lutz ’22 – 1st place in House Chamber #4 – wildcard earned
- Aakash Jain ’22 – 2nd place in House Chamber #4
Speech:
International Extemporaneous Speaking:
- Ryan Alappatt ’22 – 1st place – wildcard earned
- Ashok Ramkumar ’21 – 2nd place – wildcard earned
- Kush Narang ’22 – 3rd place – wildcard earned
- Majid Shabbeer ’22 – 4th place – wildcard earned
- Akhil Iyengar ’22 – 6th place – wildcard earned
- Ram Gorthi ‘22 – 8th place – semifinalist
- Nihaar Charagulla ‘22 – 9th place – semifinalist
- Francis Olakangil ‘23 – 10th place – semifinalist
- Oliver Owen ‘23 – 12th place – semifinalist
National Extemporaneous Speaking:
- Brendan Foody ’21 – 2nd place – wildcard earned
- Surya Midha ’21 – 3rd place – wildcard earned
- Anthony Reynolds ’22 – 4th place – wildcard earned
- Arshon Keyani ’23 – 5th place – wildcard earned
- Owen Thompson ’22 – 6th place – wildcard earned
- Ben Manens ’22 – 7th place – wildcard earned
- Andrew Almeida ’21 – 8th place – semifinalist
- Jason Cappelloni ’22 – 10th place – semifinalist
- Rohan Lingam ’24 – 12th place – semifinalist
- Avi Upadhyayula ’21 – 13th place – semifinalist
- Joseph Thomas ’23 – 15th place – semifinalist
Original Oratory:
- Rishi Dinesh ’23 – 1st place, tournament champion! – wildcard earned
- Daniel Yim ’24 – 8th place – semifinalist
- Nathan Kang ’23 – 9th place – semifinalist
- Arnav Dhingra ’23 – 10th place – semifinalist
- Michael Lutz ’22 – 14th place – semifinalist
- Alex Grabowski ’23 – 15th place – semifinalist
- Samuel Perrott ’23 – 16th place – semifinalist
- John Xu ’22 – 18th place – semifinalist
- Saketh Dasaradhi ’24 – 19th place – semifinalist
- Christian Moran ’23 – 21st place – semifinalist
- Keshav Singh ’22 – 22nd place – semifinalist
Duo Interpretation:
- Shiven Pandey ’23 and Rishi Dinesh ’23 – 6th place – wildcard earned
Dramatic Interpretation:
- Nimai Talur ’22 – 5th place – wildcard earned
Humorous Interpretation:
- Finbarr Donovan ’22 – 2nd place – wildcard earned
- Ethan Zuo ’24 – 9th place – semifinalist
Program Oral Interpretation:
- Eric Gottlieb ’21 – 3rd place – wildcard earned
Oratorical Interpretation:
- Ryan Milligan ‘22 – 9th place – semifinalist
- Nathan Kang ‘22 – 12th place – semifinalist
- Saurav Kumar ‘22 – 17th place – semifinalist
- Finnan MacRunnels ‘22 – 19th place – semifinalist
Original Advocacy:
- Iggy Chardos ’21 – 3rd place – wildcard earned
- Jeremy Wang ’23 – 4th place – wildcard earned
- Dhruv Dalmia ’22 – 6th place – wildcard earned
- Purav Desai ‘22 – 8th place – semifinalis
- Nihaal Konda ‘23 – 9th place – semifinalist
- Sahith Kudaravalli ‘21 – 10th place – semifinalist
- Franky Chardos ’23 – 11th place – semifinalist
- Vijay Sonakiya ’23 – 14th place – semifinalist
- Connor Chatterjee ‘23 – 15th place – semifinalist
Expository Speaking:
- Sahil Saoji ’21 – 3rd place – wildcard earned
- Owen Botkin ’23 – 5th place – wildcard earned
Impromptu Speaking:
- Arnav Dhingra ’23 – 2nd place – wildcard earned
- Brendan Foody ’21 – 3rd place – wildcard earned
- Surya Midha ’21 – 4th place – wildcard earned
- Eric Gottlieb ’21 – 5th place – wildcard earned
- Kush Narang ’22 – 6th place – wildcard earned
- Ram Gorthi ‘22 – 13th place – semifinalist
- Majid Shabbeer ‘22 – 14th place – semifinalist
- Ani Mani ‘23 – 19th place – semifinalist
Policy Debate:
There were 4 undefeated teams in policy debate and 3 of them were from Bellarmine. For this entire year, our policy debate team will debate the following resolution: “Resolved: The United States federal government should enact substantial criminal justice reform in the United States in one or more of the following: forensic science, policing, sentencing.”
- Rishi Dinish ’23 and Neal Dwivedula ’23 – undefeated – wildcard earned
- Franky Chardos ’23 and Ani Mani ’23 – undefeated – wildcard earned
- John Xu ’22 and Ryan Alappatt ’22 – undefeated – wildcard earned
Lincoln-Douglas Debate:
There were 7 undefeated LD debaters and 1 of them was from Bellarmine. For September and October, the LD debaters have been debating the following resolution: “Resolved: In a democracy, voting ought to be compulsory.”
- Arshon Keyani ’23 – undefeated – wildcard earned
Congratulations to all the participants, and to Speech and Debate coaches Aaron Langerman ‘11, DeeDee Sullivan, Matt DeLateur ‘12, Vern Cleary, Johny Hong, Xavier Liu ‘17, Ani Prabhu ‘16, and Tyler Vergho ’19.