Strong First Semester Highlighted By Runner-Up Finish at St. Mark's

Building off its very successful 2016-2017 season, the Woodward Academy debate team put together an extremely impressive first semester resume that included two major tournaments championships and two runner-up finishes.

The highlight of the first semester came in October when seniors Alanna Pearson and Arjun Srinivasan reached the final round of the Heart of Texas Invitational at the St. Mark's School of Texas. The duo defeated teams from Hendrickson (TX), Westminster (GA), Carrollton Sacred Heart (FL), Westwood (TX), New Trier (IL), LASA (TX), Glenbrook South (IL), and MBA (TN) before losing a close 2-1 decision in the finals to Greenhill (TX). This was only the third time in school history that Woodward reached the finals at St. Mark's, one of the most competitive invitational tournaments in the country. The War Eagles previously won the championship in 2011 (Rahim Shakoor and Jason Sigalos) and finished second in 2009 (Matthew Pesce and Max Plithides).

Earlier in the semester, Pearson and Srinivasan won the championship at the Chattahoochee Cougar Classic — the first major invitational in Georgia. This was Woodward's second consecutive Cougar Classic championship and seventh in the last twelve years.  

Juniors Mona Mahadevan and Malachi Robinson also had an impressive semester that was capped off by back-to-back final round appearances. In late November, they finished second at Westminster where they defeated teams from MBA (TN), Carrollton Sacred Heart (FL), Johns Creek (GA), Thomas Jefferson (VA), Westminster (GA), and St. Mark's (TX). At their next tournament in early December, they won the championship at Carrollton Sacred Heart by defeating St. Mark's (TX) in the final round. 

Both teams finished the semester with one championship and one runner-up finish. Pearson and Srinivasan also finished as double-octafinalists at Greenhill, quarterfinalists at Westminster, and semifinalists at Carrollton while Mahadevan and Robinson were octafinalists at Greenhill and Meadows. Robinson was also a semifinalist at Chattahoochee debating with sophomore Nishita Ghanate.

Individually, the team earned nine top-five speaker awards including Mahadevan's first place finish at Westminster and Srinivasan's second place finish at Chattahoochee.

The team's younger debaters also had a successful semester that included novice championships at Chattahoochee, Johns Creek, and Carrollton Sacred Heart and the JV championship at Sequoyah. Impressively, 17 different novice students reached at least one elimination round for Woodward during the first semester: Alex Bates '21, Akbar Chranya '21, Sonali Dade '22, Zach Gardner '22, Lorielle Georgetown '21, Ashna Ghanate '22, Kyle Hammond '21, Kittie Hedgebeth '21, Alena Jones '22, Praval Kandimalla '21, Christina Kim '21, Patrick Kim '21, Matthew O'Stricker '20, Jack Pressgrove '20, Sachi Reddy '21, Connor Rosenthal '21, and Katherine Weathington '21.