MSU Debate team reaches Final Four at fall semester’s largest tournament

MSU Debate reached the Final Four at the Franklin R. Shirley Classic at Wake Forest University last weekend.

Joanna Gusis, a Statistics and Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy senior in the Honors College, and Stephen Lewis, a Social Relations and Policy junior, reached the semifinals following three days of competition.

Gusis and Lewis defeated teams from Harvard University, Northwestern University, Georgetown University, the University of Minnesota, and George Mason University in their preliminary debates.

Debaters are also assigned individual speaker points in preliminary debates and Gusis was the tournament’s 13th overall speaker and Lewis was 16th.

Wake Forest the largest tournament in the fall semester, with 138 entries in the open division.

“Stephen and Joanna’s results are incredibly impressive,” said Will Repko, head coach of MSU Debate. “Two top twenty speaker awards in a pool of 276 debaters demonstrates how well they were debating.”

Based on preliminary-round records and speaker points, the top 32 teams were seeded into a single-elimination bracket. Gusis and Lewis were the tournament’s 13th seed entering elimination debates.

In elimination debates, Gusis and Lewis defeated teams from Baylor University, California State University Long Beach, and Emory University to reach the semifinals.

This is the second semifinals appearance for Gusis and Lewis this season. They also reached the semifinals at the JW Patterson Debates hosted by the University of Kentucky.

“The whole team has been working hard since the summer and these results are a testament to that work,” said Jasmine Stidham, assistant coach MSU Debate. “Many of the arguments we used in big spots this weekend have been in the works for months.”

MSU was also represented at the tournament by Arielle Gearring, a Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy senior, Hina Shehzad, an International Relations junior, Glen Scully, a computer science senior, Zaria Jarman, a Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy junior, Henry Martin, a physics and philosophy freshman in the Honors College, and Isabella Foster, a philosophy and film freshman in the Honors College.