Speech & Debate crowned state champs
March 24, 2023
Speech & Debate crowned state champs
Competing in the large school division, Upper St. Clair earned 600.5 points. North Allegheny Senior High School finished second with 519.5 points and Pennsbury High School was third with 348 points. Upper St. Clair took top honors in Speech Sweepstakes and second in Debate Sweepstakes.
Individually, senior Nitin Chandran finished first in Extemporaneous. With three other classmates ranking in the top six, this marks the first time in PHSSL State history where four finalists in an event were from the same school.
The following competitors advanced to Debate semifinal rounds (Places 3-4):
- Lucia Miles & Savera Baloch – Policy Debate
- Jack Miller & Patrick Nowak – Parliamentary Debate
- Opal Miller & Aahna Sinha – Public Forum Debate
The following competitors advanced to Speech final rounds (Places 2-6):
- Ansh Goyal – Senate – second place
- Aarav Patil – Persuasive – second place
- Rosemary Ramirez – Impromptu – second place
- Ashe Sobel-Drum – Senate – third place
- Vincent Watson – Informative – third place
- Cameron Weber – Extemporaneous – third place
- Matthew Hrehocik – Extemporaneous – fourth place
- Ishaan Sharma – Extemporaneous – fifth place
The following competitors advanced to quarterfinals in Debate, but did not advance to the semifinals: (Places 5-8)
- Jasmine Dietiker & Edy McCurrie – Parliamentary Debate
- Shubham Patel & Shiven Verma – Policy Debate
- Isabella Lin & Zahra Khan – Parliamentary Debate
- Qadir Khan – Extemporaneous Debate
- Nikhita Thakuria – Lincoln-Douglas Debate (Play-in Round)
The following competitors made the semifinals in Speech events (Top 12), but did not advance to the final rounds (Places 7-14):
- Ujal Gautam – Senate
- Priyasha Itani – Persuasive
- Max Gresh & Arnav Kumar – News Broadcasting
- Rohan Mehta – Commentary
- Maanasa Reddy – Persuasive
- Lilia Schmidt – Humor
- Divya Udhayakumar – Informative
The following students qualified for the state tournament but did not advance in the competition:
- Josh Anand & Henry Ginsburg – Parliamentary Debate
- Nicky Misquitta – House
- Medha Misra – Lincoln-Douglas Debate
- Priyanka Palayekar – Senate
- Anushka Sharma – Poetry
- Tommy Slowey & Manav Kumar – Duo Interpretation
- Isabel Vilensky & Theeya Chen – Public Forum Debate
- Henry Zheng – Commentary
The Upper St. Clair High School Speech & Debate Team is coached by high school teachers Ben Edwards and Dave Watson. Founded in 1961, the Pennsylvania High School Speech League’s purpose is to stimulate through educational competition an understanding and appreciation of all areas of speech.