UT Tyler Debate Travels to McKendree University

On October 18-20^th, the UT Tyler Parliamentary Debate Team traveled to McKendree University for the Sixth Annual Bearcat Classic and Richard Hunsaker Invitational Debate Tournaments.  Located in Lebanon, Illinois (30 minutes east of St. Louis), McKendree University has been a regular tournament for UT Tyler for over four years, and it carries a consistent level of competition and excitement for our debate teams.

Historically, the McKendree swing tournament consists of the most competitive parliamentary debate teams from the Midwest, and has often been an indicator for who performs well at both of our national tournaments (National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence and the National Parliamentary Debate Association Tournament).  While the quantity of teams is lower than most tournaments (roughly 33 teams in both halves), the quality of competition is high, as a large portion of the teams have placed in the top twenty of nationals in the past two years.

The first half of the tournament, the Bearcat Classic, had 33 teams from 7 different universities and colleges, and consisted of five preliminary rounds and five elimination rounds.  UT Tyler entered three teams in the tournament: UT Tyler FH (Dallas Flick and Carver Hodgkiss), UT Tyler BC (Kaitlyn Bull and Sam Cook), and UT Tyler HM (Steven Hullum and Taylor Manatsa).  After prelims, UT Tyler FH went 4-1 and was 6^th seed going into elimination rounds, BC went 5-0 and was 1^st seed in elimination rounds, and UT Tyler HM went 2-3 and did not break to elimination rounds.  However, they did compete in the JV breakout rounds for the JV debaters who did not break into out rounds, and finished in second place.  After elimination rounds, FH finished in octofinals, while BC finished in quarterfinals.

In the second half of the tournament, the Hunsaker Invitational, the same three teams competed against the same level of competition.  All three teams broke to out rounds in the second half, with FH going 3-2 and earning the 9^th seed, BC going 5-0 and earning 1^st seed, and HM going 3-2 and earning 16^th seed.  In out rounds, HM finished in partial octofinals, FH finished in quarterfinals, and BC lost in finals to Washburn University to earn second place in the tournament. 

The next tournament for the UT Tyler Debate Team will be the Top City Classic at Washburn University, located in Topeka, Kansas.  To keep up with tournament results from past and upcoming tournaments, check out Parli Tournament for live updates, and check out npte.debateaddict.com to see rankings for debate teams nationwide.