by Kaitlin Kinsella and Alyssa Braver

MANCHESTER, NH – It was an all around winning weekend for Lafayette, as the Lafayette Leopards made a stunning comeback to defeat the Colgate Raiders in football, and the Lafayette Forensic Team swept the field at Saint Anselm’s Jack Lynch Memorial tournament.

This annual tournament is named after Jack Lynch, a World War Two marine who went on to be a professor at Saint Anselm College. He was the drafted to start up the debate team, despite never having done debate himself. He coached the team for 46 years and was loved by all in the forensic community. Every year, the tournament is held in his honor and an award is given in his name to a debater, chosen by the community, who best exemplifies his love for the activity and the values of the community. This year the Jack Lynch Award was given to Lafayette’s own Vanessa Milan (’16).

Debaters Justin Horn (’15), Alyssa Braver (’16), Vanessa Milan, and Emily Carter (’18) competed in the tournament’s open division. After four preliminary rounds, Alyssa Braver advanced to semi-finals, where she defeated Hillsdale’s Kevin Ambrose in a 3-0 decision. Saint Anselm’s Becca Pelletier and Otterbein’s Maggie Parson also made it to semi-finals, and Maggie Parsons advanced. This set up a final round between Alyssa Braver and Maggie Parsons. In a 2-1 decision Maggie Parson became the tournament champion.

Alyssa Braver went on to receive the 5th place speaker award. Justin Horn received the 4th place speaker award and Vanessa Milan received the 3rd place one. The success did not stop though, as Andrew Ortiz (’18) more than adequately represented Lafayette in the novice division. St. Anselm was the first tournament Andrew ever traveled to, and this made his semi-finalist finish even more impressive. Andrew Ortiz also received the 4th place novice speaker award. All these achievements contributed to the Lafayette debate team receiving 2nd place in team sweepstakes!

The debate team was not the only Lafayette team to receive a team sweepstakes award at this year’s Jack Lynch Memorial tournament. The speech team received 1st place in IE Team sweepstakes. This was the third tournament Lafayette’s speech team competed in this semester and had the largest number of individual competitors. Sharon Chen (’15), Joseph Arrieta (’15), Vanessa Milan, Alyssa Braver, Jennifer Bognar (’16), Kaitlin Kinsella (’17), Paul Polk (’18), Jasmine Puri (’18), Bilal Akbar (’18), and Aaron Walker (’18) represented Lafayette’s speech team this weekend at Saint Anselm’s College.

The Speech Team received 1st place in team sweepstakes because of the impressive speeches the entire team presented. Senior and president of the Lafayette Forensics Team, Sharon Chen, received the award for 1st place Trithon while teammate Kaitlin Kinsella received 2nd place Trithon. In order to qualify for the Trithon award a competitor must have competed in at least three events. Impressively, this weekend every member of the Lafayette speech team received an award.

The Lafayette Speech team competed in prose, extemporaneous speaking, impromptu, informative, rhetorical criticism, after dinner speaking, and persuasion. Joseph Arrieta got 1st place in prose with teammates Kaitlin Kinsella getting 2nd place and Jennifer Bognar receiving 3rd place. Extemporaneous speaking was also swept by Lafayette students with first-year Aaron Walker receiving first place. First years Paul Polk took second and Bilal Akbar took third. In impromptu Kaitlin Kinsella received 2nd place. Jennifer Bognar also got 2nd place in after dinner speaking. Senior Sharon Chen received first place in all of her events: rhetorical criticism, informative, and persuasion.

While Sharon Chen received first place in persuasion, the top five persuasion speakers were from Lafayette College. Kaitlin Kinsella finished in 5th place, Alyssa Braver was awarded 4th place, Jasmine Puri received 3rd place, and Vanessa Milan completed the sweep in 2nd place. Alyssa Braver and Vanessa Milan were double entered in speech and debate at this tournament. This was Alyssa’s first time with persuasion and only Vanessa’s second tournament with speech. These two debaters are a great addition to the speech team and we can not wait to see how they do the rest of the year! This was the first tournament for first-year Jasmine Puri and she is only going to get better.

The Lafayette speech team represented Lafayette well in persuasion and all of the other individual events. The next time the Lafayette Forensic Team will be competing is at Ohio State University from December 5-6 in the Holiday Frolic tournament. Wish us luck as we wrap up the fall semester right before exams.