The long debate season ended on Sunday, April 30, with the annual Deerfield Academy Debating Tournament, where 120 debaters from 17 schools competed in three rounds of parliamentary debate. For the third consecutive year, Hotchkiss finished as the school with the best overall record, going 10-2 and winning seven of the 12 individual and pair awards. The team won seven parliamentary debate tournaments this year, bringing the total over the last two and a half years to 18.

At the novice level, TJ Park ’25 made his debut as a competitive debater and finished as the third place novice pair with his partner Maadhavan Prasanna ’25. Vanessa Guerra ’25 and Teo Everts ’26 were the second place novice pair. Maadhavan finished as second place novice speaker, his second consecutive top-three finish.

In the advanced competition, Peter Berlizov ’24 and Meilan Antonucci ’24 were the first place advanced pair. Meilan was the second place advanced speaker and peter was the third place advanced speaker, making this the fifth time this year that two Hotchkiss debaters have finished in the top three advanced speakers. Co-captain Jason Shan ’23 was in fourth place. Jason and his partner, co-captain Ben Who ’24, finished with important wins to keep Hotchkiss one win ahead of host Deerfield.

This season, the team has welcomed many new debaters and watched experienced debaters continue to develop and enjoy success. Twenty Hotchkiss students have competed in 12 local and international competitions. The team is already planning for next season, when it will defend its three-year winning streak at the season-opening Roxbury Latin School Tournament on Sept. 10.