by Kaitlin Kinsella and Alyssa Braver

COLUMBUS, OH — While the basketball team was dancing in Pittsburgh against Villanova (#rollpards, congrats on a great season!), the Lafayette Forensics Team went dancing this Spring Break at two tournaments. To start the week off some of the novices traveled to Butler University in Indianapolis for Novice Nationals March 14-15. Novice Nationals is a national tournament where novices are the only competitors invited — all competitors at this tournament are in their first collegiate year of speech. This is a great tournament to measure how much a competitor has grown throughout their first year of speech.

This year the Forensics Team had seven novices competing in the speech circuit. The novices of the 2014-2015 year included: seniors Ryan Monahan (’15) and Joseph Arrieta (’15); juniors Alyssa Braver (’16), Vanessa Milan (’16), and Jennifer Bognar (’16); and first-years Aaron Walker (’18) and Jasmine Puri (’18). With the addition of the seven novices the Speech Team doubled in size and had a healthy 10 competitors. Senior Sharon Chen (’15), junior Cassidy Reller (’16), and sophomore Kaitlin Kinsella (’17) returned as speech team members. The novices were an important addition to the team allowing the Lafayette Leopards to excel in speech tournaments throughout the year.

Joseph Arrieta, Jennifer Bognar, Aaron Walker, and Jasmine Puri represented Lafayette at Novice Nationals. Giving up their first weekend of Spring Break, the team traveled over 600 miles to Butler University to compete in the annual event. The Leopards competed in prose, extemperaneous speaking, impromptu, persuasion, and after dinner speaking. In addition to competing in several events, the novices had the opportunity to bond as a group and look back at their progress throughout the year. All four novices that traveled to Novice Nationals have qualified for April’s National Forensic Association Championship Tournament in their first year of competition, which is no easy feat.

At Novice Nationals, teammates Aaron Walker and Jennifer Bognar advanced to final rounds. Walker received two awards: fifth place in extemporaneous speaking and fifth place in impromptu. Bognar finished fourth in after dinner speaking. Advancing to finals at Novice Nationals is an incredible honor and excellent result. This was the 33rd Novice National Tournament and 29 schools from across the nation were represented. Breaking to finals shows just how strong Walker and Bognar’s speeches were. Every novice who competed in Novice Nationals should be proud of their progress and represented Lafayette exceptionally.

In addition to traveling to Butler University, the Leopards also traveled to Columbus, Ohio to compete at the Ohio State Generic Tournament on March 21. The four Leopards that traveled to Ohio were: Joseph Rothschild (’16), Vanessa Milan (’16), and Alyssa Braver (’16); and Kaitlin Kinsella (’17). The students competed in both speech and debate.

Building on the momentum gained in Indianapolis, the Leopards did extremely well in individual events. Vanessa Milan was the tournament champion in persuasion with teammate Kaitlin Kinsella receiving second. Kinsella also recieved second in impromptu and was the tournament champion for prose interpretation. The Leopards showed their excellent oratorical skills at Ohio State this past weekend.

Three debaters competed as well. Juniors Joseph Rothschild (’16), Vanessa Milan (’16), and Alyssa Braver (’16) all competed in the open division. Five schools competed in Lincoln Douglas debate. Joseph Rothschild (’16) was the top seed after the preliminary rounds, going 4-0. This achievement ensured that he would represent Lafayette in the semi-finals round where he faced off against Maggie Parson from Otterbein Univeristy. In an intense and close round, Joseph narrowly lost on a 2-1 decision. However, the team still had a fun and educational time at the tournament, followed by even more hotel fun consisting of Just Dance and Zumba, in which Joseph Rothschild was the Just Dance champion.

The next time the debaters will compete will be at the Spring Six at our own Lafayette College on March 28th. It is sure to be an exciting experience that you do not want to miss! A Just Dance competition will also be held before Awards. We hope to see you there! In the mean time, don’t get fancy, just get dance-y!