Legacy

• Captains: Sydelle Buyungo, Wren Nelson

This team began with a small group of students advocating for Speech and Debate at DSA. Starting midway through the first semester and with no novice season and little experience, we taught ourselves what speech and debate is, learning as we went by struggling at varsity tournaments. Despite being a 3A school with no budget and no speech and debate class, we decided to compete in 5A, establishing a championship mentality where we wanted to go against the toughest competition. Every student on our roster competed fearlessly, willingly walking into rounds against powerhouse programs, not knowing what to expect. But we earned our first accolades, including multiple breaks in Original Oratory and Public Forum. And within the span of four months, we went from learning our events to earning a top ten performance in OO at the 5A State Championship and a break from our seniors in Public Forum. 

Sydelle and Wren comprised our first senior class, and together they established the potential for DSA Speech and Debate, which included resiliency, belief, culture, and team pride. To this day, Sydelle and Wren’s names are on our Captains’ trophy that we give out every year to a student who embodies these qualities.

Captain: Atticus Fretz

Four Year Competitor: Atticus Fretz

Our second year was all about establishing ourselves as a team to be reckoned with. Having learned what speech and debate is, our students dedicated themselves to their events, truly becoming varsity performers who could compete with anyone. With a strong group of novices who showed out during our first novice season and with a tight knit senior class, we started the year with a bang, earning our team’s first tournament victory: winning PF at the Cherry Creek Classic. Additionally, in just our first year doing LD, our debaters earned LD breaks at their first three tournaments. Our success continued throughout the season as we more than doubled our number of tournaments, quadrupled our entries, and earned multiple breaks at every tournament. And our team grew closer as we started new traditions, like dominating character congress and barking during awards, underdogs that we were and always will be. We felt like we truly put ourselves on the map late in the season when, at the Ocelotl, we earned a team record 15 breaks, including another PF victory. And at the 5A State Championship, we achieved our season goal of establishing ourselves as a powerful program by earning another top-10 in speech and by winning the state championship in PF. We followed that up with our first qualifiers for Nationals and a trip to Iowa, where we got our first taste of national competition. 

This year’s senior class established the standard for our team. They competed together, always putting the team first. They established a culture of success, accountability, and hard work while not losing our unique DSA quirkiness. They left a legacy of excellence and teamwork that has reverberated through the years – a legacy that every subsequent class has been challenged to live up to.

Captains: Mark D. Thompson, Irene Kim, Nolan Ottele

Four Year Competitors: Mark D. Thompson, Nolan Ottele

Academic All Americans: Mark D. Thompson, Camilo Ayadi

Entering our third season, we set the highest expectations for ourselves. After last year’s success, we felt like we had arrived as a team to be reckoned with, but we knew we needed to prove to ourselves that our program was building for long term success. We started the year strong, adding a new coach and dozens of new students, who showed enormous potential during novice season. And we started the year with the same momentum we ended 2024 with, earning our first tournament victories in speech, including back to back wins in Info. The success continued all year, as we nearly doubled our tournament breaks and victories, helped host our first tournament, and welcomed our beloved mascot, Paul, straight from the mean streets of American Furniture Warehouse. We reveled in the sight of the giant tiger appearing on stage at awards over and over again, and our bond as a team grew stronger. All of our work culminated in another incredible showing at the 5A State Championship, earning four top-4 finishes, and then we continued the success by earning six National Qualifiers, where we had multiple breaks and a top-25 run in PF.

This senior class cemented our team’s standard, achieving a level of success in two and a half years that reflected their unshakeable commitment to the team and the process. Their legacy is one of professionalizing our structures, amplifying our team culture, and setting a standard for hard work, commitment, and success that still guides us. Nobody could ever outwork this class, and their success reflects that. 

Captains: Sadie Wilson, Gabriella Marinace-Lee 

Four Year Competitors: Abigail Watanabe, Eleanor Fretz, Maya Goldberg, Katie Figueroa

Academic All Americans: Gabriella Marinace-Lee, Hayden Ferrandino, Maya Goldberg

Being the last year of competition for those who helped restart the team in 2022 and coming off the heels of two successful seasons, this year’s seniors had massive shoes to fill, and they lived up to every expectation. We began the season with unprecedented growth, going into our first novice tournament with over eighty students on the roster. Our seniors did incredible work infusing this new team with our established culture, immediately teaching our novices what our standard for work and togetherness was. This massive influx of students resulted in large tournament rosters, but our leaders worked hard to ensure everyone felt like a core part of the team while also continuing to improve in their events. Our first semester included our first LD and Interp tournament victories, our first tournament with both PF and LD victories, and many top three finishes. More importantly, our senior class helped guide numerous novices to tournament breaks and continued improvement, week to week. Our second semester was one of incredible resolve, as we continued our standard for success despite setbacks like our first travel tournament being canceled because of weather the day before the tournament. We responded with grit and success, earning more victories in our lead up to the postseason, including our first tournament victory by a freshman. And in the postseason, we once again found incredible success, including three top-3 finishes at the 5A State Championship and ten National Qualifiers, where we had a top-25 run in Extemporaneous Debate.

Through four years of dedication to the team, this senior class was the anchor for our team’s standards, norms, and expectations. This year specifically, they fostered a group of young students and helped build them into immediate winners. Our leaders mentored the team’s biggest freshmen class ever into its most successful freshmen class ever, setting us up for future maintained success while continuing the values that defined the first generation of the team. Being the last of the original class of the revamped DSA team, this year’s seniors marked the end of an era, but they left a legacy informed by all the classes before them that define our culture. This is a legacy of unity, pride, grit, hard work, and excellence.