UT Tyler Forensics goes to Portland, Oregon!

UT Tyler FH vs. Lewis and Clark MH

On Friday, October 4th, at 5:00 AM, the University of Texas at Tyler Debate Team pulled out of the parking lot and began a 2 hour drive to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, where a plane would then fly them almost 4 hours to attend the 2013 Steve Hunt Classic - a speech and debate tournament that would feature more than 40 universities from all across the country.




While most of the tournaments the team attends are swing tournaments, meaning that there are 2 tournaments in one weekend, the Steve Hunt Classic was just one tournament.  The tournament included 6 preliminary rounds, and all teams with a record of 4 wins or more would advance to elimination rounds.  Prelim rounds began on Saturday morning at 8:00 AM and elimination rounds began around 9:00 AM on Sunday morning.

UT Tyler took 2 teams to the tournament, UT Tyler FH (Dallas Flick and Carver Hodgkiss) and UT Tyler BC (Caitlin Bul and Sam Cook).  During the preliminary rounds, UT Tyler FH won 4 rounds and lost only 2, and UT Tyler BC won 3 rounds and lost 3 rounds, thus UT Tyler FH was the only UTT team qualifying for elimination rounds.

The elimination rounds began with a partial double-octafinals round.  This means that only teams with a 4-2 record had to debate, with all 5-1 teams and 6-0 teams earning a bye round into the octafinal round.  In the partials round, UT Tyler FH defeated the University of Washington WE, with all 3 judges voting for FH.

This means that UT Tyler FH would then move on to debate in the Octafinal round as one of the top 16 teams at the tournament.  In the Octafinal round, UT Tyler FH debated Lewis and Clark MH, earning 2 of the 3 judges' ballots.

A win in Octafinals advanced FH into the Quarterfinals round, where FH debated the University of Nevada at Reno CN, where UN Reno defeated UT Tyler FH on a 2-1 decision.

UT Tyler had an excellent showing at this tournament, and UT Tyler FH is now only 1.35 points away from earning a bid at the 2014 National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence. It is the team's hope to earn those points this upcoming weekend at their next tournament at McKendree University.

If you're interested in examining UT Tyler FH and UT Tyler BC's performances more closely, then you can find the results here.  Also, the national rankings should be up soon, so keep an eye out to see where UT Tyler falls in relation with the rest of the country!