MSU Debate reached the semifinals at the Georgetown College Tournament this past weekend, which is the team’s best-ever result at the Georgetown Tournament.

Debaters from across the country were asked to debate both sides of the season-long resolution about decarbonization. The full wording of the topic is “Resolved: The United States Federal

 

Government should adopt a clean energy policy for decarbonization in the United States, including a market-based instrument.”

Joanna Gusis, a Statistics and Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy junior in the Honors College, and Stephen Lewis, a Social Relations and Policy sophomore, defeated teams from Harvard College, the University of Michigan, New York University, University of California, Berkeley, and Wake Forest University in their seven preliminary debates.

“The preliminary debates at Georgetown were especially challenging this year,” said Kevin McCaffrey, MSU Debate Assistant Coach. “Georgetown was a touch smaller than other major tournaments, but all of the best teams were still there, so you had to beat great teams to make it to elimination debates.”

At the conclusion of the preliminary debates, the tournament seeded teams in all divisions based on their win-loss record and speaker points. Elimination debates were single elimination for the top 32 teams in Open.

Because Gusis was the 15th overall speaker and Lewis was 20th, they were the second highest seed with five preliminary wins and the seventh seed overall.

“The tournament had over 120 competitors so both Joanna and Stephen being named in the top twenty speakers is a testament to how well they were debating,” said Will Repko, MSU Debate Head Coach.

 

In elimination debates, Gusis and Lewis defeated a team from the University of Iowa in the double octafinals (Round of 32), a team from Emory University in the octafinals (Sweet 16), and a team from Macalester College in the quarterfinals (Elite 8) before being narrowly bested by a team from the University of Kansas in the semifinals (Final Four).

“This was quite the run from Joanna and Stephen,” said McCaffrey. “It was such a whirlwind watching them rack up win after win, but they were able to put everything together and brought home a great result.”

 

This is the best elimination round result for Gusis and Lewis this season. They were previously in the Sweet 16 at tournaments hosted by Wake Forest, Harvard, and the University of Kentucky. They also placed third at the Kentucky Thoroughbred Round Robin – an invite-only tournament for seven of the top teams in the country.

MSU Debate was also represented at the Georgetown College Tournament by Miaomiao Zi, an Interdisciplinary Humanities and English Concentration in Creative Writing junior in the Honors College, Zaria Jarman, a Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy sophomore, Hina Shehzad, an International Relations sophomore, Ephraim Bennett, a Computer Science senior, Glen Scully, a Computer Science junior, and Omar Ansari, a Computer Science freshman in the Honors College.

The MSU Debate team is part of the Honors College.