By Jennifer Bader

On Saturday, March 16,  the Chaminade Middle School Debate Team took first place and was named Top School at the Polytechnic Invitational, one of the largest middle school debate tournaments in the country. With more than 100 teams and over 300 debaters competing, Chaminade placed four teams in the top 20. The team of Caroline Cha ’18, Rebecca Steinberg ’18, and Oceania Eshraghi ’18 went undefeated and qualified for the National Championship at Claremont McKenna College on April 26 along with the team of Maya Desai ’18, Samantha Bader ’18, and Louis Gerny ’18. This is the sixth year in a row that Chaminade will compete at the National Championship.

Several debaters also earned Top Speaker awards including Hannah Sellfors ’18, Claire Rider ’18, Oceania Eshraghi ’18, and Louis Gerny ’18, as well as 6th place speaker Maya Desai ’18, and 3rd place speaker for the tournament Samantha Bader ’18.