Unionville High School Speech and Debate Team typically participates in post-season tournaments, where students must qualify in order to attend. Because of COVID-19, two were canceled and two transitioned to virtual tournaments. We have listed the students who qualified for these tournaments below to recognize their hard work and achievements even though some of them won’t be able to compete.
The following students qualified for the 2020 Tournament of Champions hosted by the University of Kentucky. To qualify, students must earn a certain number of "bids" by demonstrating a high level of performance based on their final place at major invitational tournaments throughout the season:
Congressional Debate
*Sebastian Tucker (2021)
Public Forum Debate
Darshak Gadagkar (2020)
*Manav Gundecha (2021)
Naman Razdan (2021)
*Daisy Qiu (2020)
Evan Wang (2020)
Soumil Zachariah (2021)
Oral Interpretation:
*Anju Zhang (2021) - Semifinalist
* These students chose to participate in the tournament, which was held virtually in April.
The following students qualified to the NCFL Grand National Tournament. To qualify for this tournament, students must place in the top 6 when competing against schools from across Philadelphia and the surrounding regions.
Declamation:
Suhan Neema 2023- League Champion
Nandhini Parthasarathy 2022
Congressional Debate:
Sebastian Tucker 2021- League Champion
Soumil Zachariah 2021
Dramatic Interpretation:
Brandon Tsai 2022
Anju Zhang 2021
Extemporaneous Speaking:
Chirag Choudhary 2022
Lincoln Douglas Debate
Devin Jiang 2021
Luke Ittyachen 2020- League Champion
Oral Interpretation:
Erica Zhao 2021
Aarohi Nadkarni 2021
Original Oratory
Addison Liu 2021
Isha Bellur 2022
Policy Debate
Kevin Liao 2020
Colin McVety 2022
Ansh Abbaraju 2021
Nikhil Pisolkar 2021
Public Forum Debate
Darshak Gadagkar 2020
Evan Wang 2020
In addition, Unionville High School won the following League Sweepstakes awards for 2020:
- Varsity Speech- 2nd place
- Varsity Debate- 1st place
- Varsity Congress- 1st place
- Overall Sweepstakes- 1st place
The following students qualified to attend the National High School Speech League's Championship tournament. This is the largest tournament in the country and takes place over the week of June 15th- June 20th. To qualify for this tournament, students need to place in the top 2 of their division in the Valley Forge League, which spans from the Allentown area through the northern part of West Virginia.
Congressional Debate:
*Sebastian Tucker 2021
Dramatic Interpretation:
*Anju Zhang 2021
Extemporaneous Speaking:
*Chirag Choudhary 2022
Adarsh Gadagkar 2020
Lincoln Douglas Debate:
*Luke Ittyachen 2020
*Devin Jiang 2021
Persuasive Speaking:
*Addison Liu 2021
Policy Debate:
*Ansh Abbaraju 2021
*Aryan Abbaraju 2023
*Akash Patel 2023
*Nikhil Pisolkar 2021
Public Forum Debate
Darshak Gadagkar 2020
*Manav Gundecha 2021
*Daisy Qiu 2020
*Naman Razdan 2021
*Soumil Zachariah 2021
Evan Wang 2020
*These students have chosen to compete at the virtual tournament taking place in June