Lafayette Speech and Debate

This weekend, we attended the annual Pennsylvania Forensics Association state tournament in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. The tournament this year was hosted at Bloomsburg University. The Pennsylvania Forensics Association State tournament (also known as PFA) is the most important tournament in the state of PA at the collegiate level.  Not only is it a time for all the Pennsylvania college teams to converge and compete, but it determines who will represent the state of PA at the annual IOA tournament (Interstate Oratorical Association)! It’s always a great tournament and a fun time. Results for the tournament this weekend are below:

ADS, Michelle, 4th, Camsey, 2nd & Holly ADS state champion!

DI, Amber, 5th, Camsey, 2nd, Nat, DI state champion!

Duo, Camsey + Nat, state champions!

Ext, Brynne, 6th, Will, 5th, Ben, 4th, Tyler, 3rd

Info, Aleksandra, 4th, Holly, 3rd, Ben, 2nd, Camsey, Info state champion!

Impromptu, Brynne, 4th, Nat, 2nd

IPDA, Tyler, state champion!

Impromptu, Brynne, 4th Nat, 2nd

Persuasion, Will, 5th

Brynne, 4th, Nat, 3rd

Persuasion, Ben 2nd (PA state IOA qualifier!)

Poetry, Olivia, 5th, Will, 4th, Alex, 2nd

POI, Alex, 5th, Camsey, 2nd, Holly, POI state champion!

Prose, Holly 3rd, Alex, 2nd, Camsey, prose state champion!

Rhetorical Criticism, 2nd Nat, Tyler, crit state champion!

For IE sweepstakes, we had Ben in 6th place, Holly in 3rd place, Nat in 2nd place and Camsey was the individual sweepstakes champion and was 1st place in the state!

Finally, the 2025 Pennsylvania state champions were Lafayette College! What an amazing state tournament! Fun fact – Lafayette has won the state tournament every year since 2019!

This weekend, we travelled down south to the commonwealth of Virginia to attend the aptly named Virginia is for Lovers Tournament at George Mason University! We had a great time, from seeing our speech friends from near and far, to participating in the annual scavenger hunt (Ben found 1 ring!) to singing along to the Wicked musical soundtrack (both in the car and at the awards ceremony).

(pictures from this weekend; can you tell the tournament was Wicked themed?)

The students had an amazing weekend – results are below:

ADS Penelope, 5th
Camsey, 6th

Rhetorical Criticism Nat, 4th
Tyler, 2nd

DI Camsey 2nd

Duo Alex + Penelope, 6th

Extemporaneous Ben, 2nd

Info Ben, 3rd
Camsey, 4th

Poetry Alex, 5th

POI Camsey, 5th

Prose Alex, 4th
Camsey, 2nd

Camsey won an individual sweepstakes awards and was 3rd place! 

 Overall, the team was 3rd place! What a great weekend and the perfect warmup for our Pennsylvania State Tournament next weekend!

The semester is up and running! Lafayette College started classes on Monday but the speech team has already been to 2 tournaments this month! 

HFO~~

Two weeks ago, we took a few students to Austin, Texas for the Hell Froze Over tournament at the University of Texas at Austin, aptly named for it’s aggressive and intense back to back rounds. The students were troopers and performed phenomenally. HFO results are below:

In the Saturday portion of the tournament we had multiple semifinals breaks. Camsey broke to semifinals in ADS, Ben broke to semis in info, and Natalia broke to semis in impromptu!

Camsey was 5th in info and Natalia was 6th in impromptu!

In the Sunday portion of the tournament, there were multiple breaks as well! Natalia broke to semis in DI while Camsey broke to semis in info. Camsey was also 6th in prose!

.       

1804 ~~

This past weekend, we went to the Ohio University 1804 tournament in Athens, Ohio! It was a great tournament and a looong drive. We headed down to Athens on Thursday for the debate portion of the tournament on Friday! We also had a special guest, Jordan, one of our team alums, join us on Saturday for the speech portion of the tournament. The results are below:

After Dinner Speaking – Camsey was 4th, Levi was 5th, and Michelle was 6th

DI – Camsey was 1st place!

Extemp –  Ben was 2nd place

Impromptu – Ben was 5th place

Info – Ben was 3rd place and Camsey was 1st place!

Persuasion – Ben was 3rd place

Poetry – Alex was 3rd place

POI – Camsey was 3rd place

Prose – Camsey was 3rd place and Alex was 6th place

For individual event sweepstakes, Ben was 4th place and Camsey was 1st place champion!

The team also won 4th place in team sweeps!

(pictured below)

That’s a wrap for the first semester of the 2024-2025 forensics season! 

This past weekend we went to the gorgeous Hofstra University to compete in the annual Off Broadway tournament! This was a swing so we competed in both the Saturday and Sunday portions of the tournament. Pictures and results are below!

For the Saturday portion of the Off Broadway Swing, we had students compete in both the speech and debate parts of the tournament. 

For the speech half,
ADS, Camsey, 2nd
Extemp, Will 4th
Poetry, Alex, 5th

For IPDA debate, we had 2 bronze medalists/semifinalists!
Juan & Matt!
& Bridget was 3rd place IPDA speaker!

For team awards, we won 3rd place for IPDA sweeps

The Sunday portion of the Off Broadway Swing results are below!
ADS, Camsey, 1st place champion! 
Extemp, Will, 4th
Info, Camsey, 4th
Prose, Camsey, 4th, Holly, 5th
Poetry, Alex, 5th

For Sunday, the team competed in Parliamentary debate and we had 2 teams – Bridget and Juan & Matt and Matt (who debated solo)
For parliamentary, Bridget and Juan won 2nd place overall!
For speaker points,
Juan was 3rd place speaker
Bridget was 1st place champion! 

For team awards, they were 2nd place for debate and 4th place for combined sweepstakes!

                                                                  🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆

The team had an amazing first semester of competition. We had an insanely successful recruiting season and have welcomed 20 novices onto the squad! We went to numerous tournaments over the course of the semester including the Virginia is for Lovers tournament at James Madison University, the Dutchess Community College and Seton Hall SNAFU tournaments, and the Off Broadway swing. We also had Camsey compete in an asynchronous tournament where they won 6th place in ADS! We also hosted our annual OchoIE tournament which was a huge success! A few of the returners participated in various community service events at Phillipsburg High School over the course of the semester as well. We caught up with a our very special alumni at different tournaments like Yazdan, Jordan, Saeed, Ben and Danny! Busy busy busy, but what a great end to a great semester!

Happy holidays and we will see you all next year when the semester & season starts up again! 🙂

Holly and Camsey for Prose!

   .       

Bridget and Juan (on the right side) for Parli debate!

.  

Will for Extemp!

(on the left hand side)   

team warmups on Sunday morning!

This past weekend, we went to Seton Hall University for our first swing tournament of the semester! Since it was a swing, it was a long weekend with the students competing in two different tournaments over the course of the weekend! Both tournaments were held at Seton Hall in Newark, not too far from Lafayette’s campus. We also had 2 alumni join us and judge! Jordan & Yazdan were with us this weekend.

The Saturday tournament was called the Ed Leonard, named after a Seton Hall competitor. Results for the Ed Leonard portion are below:

ADS – Penelope, 1st place champion!
ADS- Holly, 3rd
Rhetorical Criticism – Natalia, 2nd
Impromptu Sales – Brynne, 6th
Impromptu – Will, 1st place champion!
Persuasion- Nat, 2nd
Poetry – Alex, 1st place champion!
Prose – Alex, 1st place champion!
Prose – Holly, 3rd

For debate, Bridget was a semifinalist and won 4th place overall!

For debate speaker awards, Bridget was 2nd & Bay was 4th!

The team also won 2 team awards!

For team sweepstakes, we were 2nd place overall. The team also walked away with the Ed Leonard award which is given annually to a competitor and a team who best emulate the characteristics of Ed Leonard, the competitor that the tournament is named after. This award means a lot to us as a team as it is not based on competitiveness but on team personality! (pictures of the award below!)

.           

The Sunday tournament was called the SNAFU Charity Ball! Each team was tasked with providing a charity and the SNAFU organization donated to the top 3 teams’ charities of choice! We were 5th place overall so we did not win a donation to our charity, but this is a great incentive for teams to perform. The charity we chose was Third Street Alliance, a women’s shelter in downtown Easton, where Lafayette is located. The results (and pictures!) from the Charity Ball tournament are below:

ADS – Penelope, 2nd, Holly 4th

Rhetorical Criticism – Natalia, 2nd
Persuasion – Natalia, 5th
Poetry – Alex, 1st place champion!
POI – Natalia, 6th

.     

The Lafayette Forensics Society had an amazing weekend this past week! We had half the team travel to Poughkeepsie, New York, for the Dutchess Community College Invitational Tournament while the other half volunteered to judge at the Phillipsburg Spooktacular High School Tournament. Both events went swimmingly.

The Dutchess tournament is the 3rd tournament that we have gone to this semester. We took almost entirely novices (plus Natalia) and had a great time in Poughkeepsie. The students did amazing and performed well, evident by the ranks the team had at the end of the weekend. Results (and pictures) are below!

ADS, Penelope, 3rd 
Rhetorical Criticism, Natalia, 3rd place
Persuasion, Natalia, 5th place
Poetry, 5th, Alex place
Prose, 2nd, Alex place
Impromptu, Natalia, 1st place Champion 

For IPDA debate, Juan and Matt both made it to semi finals! This means that out of the 14 debaters who competed, the two of them were the 2nd and 3rd top competitors. (They both also went 4-0 in preliminary rounds – impressive!) There were two outrounds, a semifinal round and a final round. Because Matt and Juan were slated to hit each other in semi finals, Juan automatically advanced being that he was 2nd seed. Ultimately, Matt was 3rd in IPDA and 3rd for IPDA speaker, while Juan was 2nd in IPDA and IPDA speaker!

This fantastic team also won a few team sweepstakes awards! For the speech portion of the tournament, they were 3rd place overall

For the debate portion, the team was 1st place and won the tournament!

For the combined sweepstakes (speech + debate portion) the team was 3rd place overall!

As a team, we attempt to have at least 2 community service events a year as a means of giving back to the forensics community. This semester we had 3 of our returners go to a local high school tournament to help volunteer to judge.  They judged every round of parliamentary debate and congress, including finals! Of the experience, co-president Will says,

“Forensics is such a big part of my life and it’s brought me so much joy and purpose — there’s no greater feeling for me than to be able to give back to this community I love so much and help make it possible for the next generation of competitors to compete. They have incredible potential and I feel more confident about our future knowing it is in their hands.”
🎃👻

(pictures of the 3 of them are below!)

It’s that time of the year again! We hosted our annual tournament, the OchoIE over the weekend of the 12th and 13th. As always, it was a great experience hosting on our beautiful campus. We had a total of 8 schools visit us from as far as Ohio (hello Ohio University!) and as close as Bloomsberg, PA. 

The great thing about hosting is that we get to do whatever we want for our tournament, and as always, we pulled out all the works. We provide a unique 2 day 3 round schedule for the weekend which allows students to be more relaxed during the tournament, gets them additional practice and feedback from judges, and allows for a later start time and earlier end time. In addition to that, we provided coffee and donuts for competitors and judges over the weekend, as well as lunch on both days for everybody. On Sunday morning, we had our traditional omelette bar breakfast for coaches and judges. And most notably, we gave away the largest trophies in the entire region (pictured below) and a super cool wrestling belt for the winner of the quality award, which was West Chester University!

Since we hosted this tournament, we only had our new recruits compete. We had numerous IPDA entries and 1 speech entry and our novices were amazing! Results are below:

Olivia, 4th – prose

Juan, 6th – IPDA speaker

Bridget, 2nd – IPDA speaker & IPDA quarterfinalist (pictured below)

The team also won 4th place in debate sweepstakes! What a great 2nd tournament of the season! Stay tuned for more!

We kicked off the forensics season with the annual Virginia is for Lovers tournament in Harrisonburg, Virginia at James Madison University. We travelled with a large group this weekend (17 students!) including multiple first year competitors. 

We also had two of our wonderful forensics team alums, Kelly and Yazdan, judging for us!

Tournament results are as follows:

ADS, Holly 5th
Extemp, Ben 2nd, Will 3rd
Impromptu, Nat 6th
Info, Ben 3rd
POI, Holly 4th
Prose, Holly 5th

The team also placed 4th in team sweepstakes!

+ next weekend, we are hosting our annual OchoIE tournament! Stay tuned!

This weekend, we took our wonderful novice Holly to the 150th Interstate Oratory National Championship. This tournament is super important as it is the oldest tournament in our community! Holly was 1 of two representatives from the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Competitors for this tournament qualify by being the top winners of persuasive speaking in the state. In Holly’s case, she was number 1 in PA! (pictures below)

aaaand that’s a wrap on the 2023/2024 forensics season! what a blast! This season has been insanely eventful, from running our own tournament in October, to making our way to Peoria, Illinois TWICE! to winning the Pennsylvania Forensics Association States Championship and the Novice National Championship! We took the students to NFA, the biggest and most important national tournament of the year and the culmination of the seasons’ work, and had multiple octofinalists, quarterfinalists and novice national finalists and champions! stay tuned for next season, and as always, rollll pards!

Holly wearing her custom made IOA shirt (with her last name on the back) with Lexi, a fellow competitor from OU

dim sum we got while we were in Chicago for IOA!

Holly practicing her speech before competition!

Last week, we took the entire squad to Mount Pleasant, Michigan for the National Forensics Association Tournament, the most important national tournament of the season (as well as the last) and the culmination of a years’ worth of hard work. Full squad in tow, we spent a week in Central Michigan with our friends @ CMU. In the forensics world, we say ‘NFA is a marathon, not a sprint,’ and was it a marathon indeed. An entire week of competition, living together and eating together, but a great week it was, and the team was very successful

There were 61 schools at this years Nationals, with a total of 399 students and 10,594 ballots (yes, 10,594 ballots). A true marathon indeed. Nevertheless, the students persisted and did phenomenal. With such a young squad full of novices and second year competitors, the results of NFA 2024 are only indicative of what is to come in the next years with this awesome group. Results are as follows…

NFA is unique in that it has octofinal rounds, in addition to quarters, semis, and finals. We had several national octofinalists:

Camsey octo’d persuasion and POI, while both Jordan and Camsey octo’d their duo!

Natalia octo’d her DI

and Ben octo’d in impromptu and extemp!

In addition to our octofinalists, we had a QUARTERFINALIST! our senior Jordan broke thru octos to quarters with her ADS! This is no small feat; a quarters break means that Jordan was in the TOP 24 speakers in the NATION!

Our novices also showed out for this tournament! We had numerous novices break to novice final rounds of their events!

Will and Bridget were in the novice final round of impromptu; Will was 3rd in the NATION, and Bridget was 6th IN THE NATION!

Holly broke to the novice persuasive speaking final round! she was 3rd in the NATION

Lastly, Will and Bridget both made it to the novice final round of extemporaneous speaking. Bridget was 4th place in the NATION while Will was 1st, making him a NOVICE NATIONAL CHAMPION!

As a team, we were 6th in the NATION in division 2 of presidential sweepstakes – sweepstakes are determined by number of entries per team.

what a way to end this semester, and this 2023/2024 season of competition. stay tuned for next year! and check out some pics from our trip below!

.