MSU Debate had five teams competing across two divisions at the Jesuit Debates hosted by Gonzaga University last weekend.
Eleazar Asase, a mechanical engineering junior and Will Sterbenc, a James Madison College freshman, won the junior varsity division after defeating teams from Emory University, the University of Wyoming, the U.S. Naval Academy and Southwestern College.
Sterbenc was also named top speaker of the junior varsity division based on individual speaker points judges award in the preliminary debates.
“Eleazar and Will had a wonderful tournament,” said Will Repko, MSU Debate head coach. “Winning a tournament with teams from all over the country really shows how they stack up against their peers.”
Asase and Sterbenc previously reached the quarterfinals earlier this season at the JW Patterson Debates hosted by the University of Kentucky.
In addition to a junior varsity championship, MSU Debate had three teams reach elimination debates in the Open division.
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 Sweet 16 after wins over Northwestern University, the University of Southern California, the University of Iowa, the University of Kansas, Wichita State University and George Mason University.
Gusis and Lewis entered the Gonzaga tournament with momentum after a deep run to the semifinals at the JW Patterson Debates.
Arielle Gearring, a Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy senior and Hina Shehzad, an International Relations junior, reached the Sweet 16 after defeating teams from Dartmouth College, the U.S. Naval Academy, Emory University, the University of Kentucky, Wichita State University and the University of Kansas.
Glen Scully, a computer science senior and Zaria Jarman, a political theory and constitutional democracy junior, reached the double-octafinals (Round of 32) after wins over Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Trinity University, Wake Forest University and the University of Kentucky.
“Having three teams in the elimination debates of Open demonstrates the depth of our squad,” said Repko. “It’s rare that a team has this level of success across divisions and across teams.”
MSU Debate had three debaters in the top 20 speakers of the Open division. Gearring was the tournament’s 14th over all speaker out of over 160 debaters, Gusis was 13th and Lewis was 11th.
MSU was also represented at the Northwestern tournament by Henry Martin, a physics and philosophy freshman in the Honors College and Isabella Foster, a philosophy and film freshman in the Honors College.
“These are some of our best results as a team with everyone notching big wins in big spots,” said Jasmine Stidham, MSU Debate assistant coach.
The MSU Debate team is part of the Honors College.
This story originally appeared on the Honors College website.
