What’s better than free coffee and a made-to-order omelette bar? The annual OchoIE forensics tournament, of course! This past weekend saw the Lafayette Forensics Society host the OchoIE tournament. Aptly named for the notorious 8-round debate prelims which are wholly unique to this tournament, the OchoIE saw its 17th year this weekend. Tournament director and Director of Forensics Scott Placke was the puppet master, ensuring that the tournament ran as smoothly as possible and that students, coaches & judges alike all had a memorable experience. In order to guarantee this, Placke included special amenities typically unavailable at other forensics tournaments, including the aforementioned made-to-order omelette bar, donuts and coffee for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and a judges lounge stocked with an abundance of snacks & drinks. Working behind the scenes to ensure that breaks, outrounds and results were properly tabulated were John Boyer & Alexis Hughes. But perhaps the most instrumental in the success of the weekend were Natalia Ferruggia and Ben Risley, both co-captains of the squad. Natalia and Ben ran around campus incessantly, ensuring that rounds started on time, responding to judges’ many qualms, setting up trophies and the lounge, and just generally making sure that everybody was doing well during the weekend. The overall team sweepstakes results of the tournament were as follows:
West Chester University was in 5th place
Hofstra University was in 4th place
James Madison University was in 3rd place
Cedarville University was in 2nd place
And in 1st place, the tournament champions were Cornell University!
From the Lafayette Forensics Society – A big thank you to everybody who made this tournament possible. We loved being your host, and look forward to seeing you all again next year! Go Pards!
(Also – keep an eye out for an article that will be published by The Lafayette on Friday regarding the tournament!)