2016 College Prep Invitational
Finalist Interviews
Lavanya Singh (Mission San Jose LS), Champion
Question: What was your favorite Neg position that you read/heard at this tournament?
Lavanya Singh: I assume you don’t want to hear about my favorite theory shells so I’ll talk about topical neg prep, but since this was the first tournament of the topic I didn’t have very much of that. I liked the capitalism kritik because it was a handy generic that every aff linked to. I also liked this totalitarianism NC that I didn’t get to break-keep an eye out for it!
Q: What do you think best prepared you for this tournament?
LS: I think reading the topic literature was useful and helped me understand what the terms in the resolution meant in relation to each other and what the core issues at the heart of the topic were. I also spent a lot of time thinking about the different nuanced interpretations of the topic that arise from its complicated wording. Those discussions were really interesting and also helped me understand how to use the wording of the resolution to exclude/include certain arguments.
Q: How do you like this topic compared to others you’ve debated and why?
LS: I feel like I don’t have a right to whine about the topic (since I didn’t vote) but I will do so anyways since you asked. I really did not like this topic because there are a lot of issues with the wording of the resolution, and how the terms interact with each other. Ideally this would result in debate about the different nuances of the topic but instead we just all ignored the awful wording so the debates were either really generic or really confusing. Also, I like reading plans and this topic made it hard for me to do that. Whole res affs get boring after a while and I did not look forward to hitting T-any. The topic also got really repetitive after like 6 rounds so I’m sure we’re all going to be sick of it when the TOC rolls around. Maybe this is just because no one had any prep since it’s so early in the topic, but either way I’m tired of having hate speech good/bad debates.
Q: Are there any positions/issues in debate that you’re passionate about that you’d like to speak about?
LS: First, people should read frameworks. This is not policy, it is LD, which means that we recognize that there are multiple kinds of impacts such as intents of consequences and that we also know that we need a metric to weigh between these. Rounds get confusing and messy when we don’t have frameworks, so let’s just all agree to invest some time in actually reading a framework instead of assuming consequentialism or claiming that something is “intrinsically valuable” without clarifying what value is. I don’t even like framework debate that much but I think that whoever first decided to read a value criterion knew what they were doing and that we should follow their footsteps.
Second, I think everyone needs to recognize that even if you personally can’t see the value of a certain style of debate, the activity means different things to different people so we shouldn’t exclude or ridicule a certain class of arguments just because we don’t like them. I don’t mean that there is value to white kids saying the n-word in round. Instead, I’m talking about things like a theory debater hating K’s and vice versa. Just as reading kritiks empowers certain debaters, in my experience being able to use theory to have a voice in developing the rules that constrain me has been empowering. It’s illogical to claim that a certain style of debate is just on face more valuable than another. The reason that debate is so awesome is that we have the flexibility to talk about whatever we want to talk about, and we should recognize that. This applies to both using theory to exclude all kritiks but also to people who claim that theory is destroying the activity.
Main Tournament
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Round 5
Round 6
Bracket
Double Octafinals
Brentwood JD walks over Brentwood EB (Bye)
Brentwood WJ def. MV Independent LH (Chapman, Sabharwal, Tagare)
Lynbrook NS def. Harker SL (Cohen, Phillips, Scoggin)
Palo Alto (Independent) CF def. Lynbrook CW (Fife, Knell, Steele)
Immaculate Heart DD def. Harvard-Westlake MG (Bearfoot, Shan, Tan)
Lynbrook VV def. Notre Dame DS (Fife, Leigh, Liu)
Harker SP def. Lynbrook AP (Lallas, Steele, Tambe)
Lynbrook HW def. Harvard-Westlake KK (Tambe, Tan, Ziaee)
Mission San Jose LS def. University HS, Irvine JC (Amestoy, Knell, Scoggin)
Harvard-Westlake AM def. Polytechnic JL (Hwang, Qi, Slade)
Dougherty Valley CS def. Sunset AB (Damerdji, Leigh, Sur)
Lynbrook NA def. Harker MS (Cohen, Phillips, Ziaee)
Harker EM def. Palo Alto (Independent) FZ (Haas, Yamasaki, Ziaee)
Brentwood RY def. Mountain View VP (Harris, Hwang, Sabharwal)
Harvard-Westlake CE def. Lynbrook YZ (Qi, Riano, Ziaee)
Harvard-Westlake EE def. Harker KS (Krishna, Tagare, Yamasaki)
Octafinals
Lynbrook NS walks over Lynbrook HW (Bye)
Brentwood WJ def. Lynbrook VV (Damerdji, Riano, Ziaee)
Harvard-Westlake CE def. Palo Alto (Independent) CF (Bearfoot, Olson, Qi)
Brentwood RY def. Immaculate Heart DD (Knell, Park, Steele)
Mission San Jose LS def. Brentwood JD (Amestoy, Fee, Hunt)
Harvard-Westlake AM def. Harker SP (Leigh, Tan, Ziaee)
Dougherty Valley CS def. Lynbrook NA (Cohen, Ivens-Duran, Phillips)
Harvard-Westlake EE def. Harker EM (Tagare, Tambe, Yamasaki)
Quarterfinals
Mission San Jose LS def. Brentwood WJ (Harris, Phillips, Steele)
Harvard-Westlake EE def. Lynbrook NS (Ivens-Duran, Lallas, Tambe)
Brentwood RY def. Harvard-Westlake CE (Qi, Sabharwal, Ziaee)
Dougherty Valley CS def. Harvard-Westlake AM (Amestoy, Leigh, Tan)
Semifinals
Harvard-Westlake EE def. Dougherty Valley CS (Tan, Leigh, Lallas)
Mission San Jose LS def. Brentwood RY (Knell, Harris, Amestoy)
Finals
Mission San Jose LS def. Harvard-Westlake EE (Tambe, Riano, Leigh)
Champion
Lavanya Singh (Mission San Jose LS)
Scouting Report
Bid Level: Quarterfinals
Entries: 105 (As of 12/11)
Debaters With Bids (As of 12/11):
Brentwood RY (2)
Brentwood EB (1)
Brentwood WJ (1)
Dougherty Valley CS (2)
Harvard-Westlake EE (5)
Harvard-Westlake CE (3)
Harvard-Westlake MG (1)
Immaculate Heart DD (2)
Lynbrook VV (3)
Lynbrook HW (1)
Lynbrook NS (1)
Mission San Jose LS (2)
Mountain View DZ (2)
Mountain View VP (1)
Palo Alto CF (1)
Sunset AB (2)
Harker EM (2)
Harker SP (2)
Harker RX (1)
West Ranch JW (3)
