The Hotchkiss Speech and Debate team started the new year with another victory at the Choate Invitational Debate Tournament on Sunday, Jan. 8. One hundred and sixty debaters from 17 schools gathered at Choate for three rounds of parliamentary debate. Hotchkiss was the only school to finish with a perfect 12-0 record, winning the tournament for the second year in a row. The team continues its unbeaten streak in parliamentary debate tournaments in the Debating Association of New England Independent Schools league.

At the advanced level, co-captain Ben Who ’24 won Top Advanced Speaker, his second tournament victory of the year. Co-captain Jason Shan ’23 finished in second place and has qualified for the World Independent Debating and Public Speaking Championships, which will be held in Durban, South Africa, this spring. For the first time, four students from the same school have qualified for Worlds. Jason joins Ben, Meilan Antonucci ’24 and Peter Berlizov ’24 as qualifiers. Jason and Ben were the Top Advanced Pair, and Meilan and Peter finished in second place. They earned First Place Advanced Four-Person Team, winning all six of their debates.

Novices Jacob Zweiback ’24, Maadhavan Prasanna ’25, Vanessa Guerra ’25, and Kavya Ramasamy ’24 also finished 6-0, winning the Top Novice Four-Person Team. Jacob and Maadhavan were the Top Novice Pair.

The team was fortunate to have Vlad Grass ’24 join Dr. Thomas Fisher as a judge for this tournament. The team is now preparing for Model United Nations at Yale, Jan. 19-22, and a public speaking tournament at the Kingswood-Oxford School on Jan. 29.