At the 2009 Tournament of Champions, Kelsey Hilbrich & Kaavya Gowda from Harker defeated Alex Edelman & Aaron Schifrin from Walt Whitman to win the Public Forum Debate championship.
Octafinals
Durham WP defeated McClintock SB (Veekas Shrivastava & Justin Bever)
Timber Creek WE defeated Ridge SB (Francis Suh & Alex Bai)
Ransom Everglades BB defeated Ransom Everglades GF (Harrison Grussmark & Jordan Flanzraich)
Lake Highland MW defeated Walt Whitman FN (Itai Farhi & Tom Niblock)
New Trier EW defeated Walt Whitman WH (Benjamin Wolcott & Sarah Houston)
Mountain Brook SG defeated New Trier GC (Joey Glickman & Zach Collins)
Harker HG defeated Regis GL (Joseph Gasperetti & James Lampariella)
Walt Whitman ES defeated Regis PS (Jackson Popkin & Ryan Smith)
Quarterfinals
Harker HG defeated Durham WP (Grace Wallack & Dede Pless)
New Trier EW defeated Timber Creek WE (Kaitlyn Westerberg & Thaddeus Ewald)
Ransom BB defeated Mountain Brook SG (William Schreiber & Amanda Claire Grayson)
Walt Whitman ES defeated Lake Highland MW (Will Miller & Danny Welch)
Semifinals
Walt Whitman ES defeated Ransom Everglades BB (Jose Bengochea & Charles Barr)
Harker HG defeated New Trier EW (Joe Eichenbaum & David Walchak)
Final Round
Harker HG (Kelsey Hilbrich & Kaavya Gowda) defeated Walt Whitman ES (Alex Edelman & Aaron Schifrin)
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Just to show how ridiculous prelim judging is at TOC, 4/4 semifinal teams went 5-2 in prelims and were in bubble rounds round 7, and 6/8 quarterfinal teams also had bubble rounds round 7 (look at the schematics if you went)
Mysterion, I believe you are mistaken. I would look over the results packet again. I know for a fact that not all of the teams in the semifinals were on the bubble in th 7th round. Even if they were that would not really say anything about the judging. Rather it would indicate that the pool was incredibly deep in terms of skill and that even those who broke on the lower end of the bracket were very qualified.
Ransom (10th seed) and Harker (9th seed) were on the bubble in round 7; Whitman (6th seed) and New Trier (5th seed) were not. Interestingly, there were three 4-2 rounds in round 7 in which both teams broke because the low speaks team in the high-low pairing beat the high speaks team, and the high speaks team cleared at 4-3 (McClintock, Mountain Brook, and Whitman FN). Tough pool.
OH you’re right, my bad. I took another look over, all the teams except for Whitman ES were in a bubble round 7 (semifinalists) and of the Quarterfinalists 4 went 6-1 and 4 were in bubbles. Still, 3/4 seminfinalist teams having been bubbles? that’s unusual
I would like to point out the fact that all this criticism is silly.
How often to people criticize the refereeing of the NCAA tournament because there are upsets and surprise teams?
Winning tournaments throughout the year does not entitle you to a spot in semis or finals. It entitles you to go to the tournament. If you work hard and debate well, you can get anywhere. And as someone who has debated or seen all four teams in semis, they are great and I want to issue a hearty congratulations to them.
Mysterion: You’re facts are still incorrect…. see debater’s post above that 2 of 4 semi’s teams were on the bubble. At any rate, most of the teams that broke were in a bubble round because that’s the way the tournament is set up… effectively round 7 is the first elim round for the majority of the pool. By having 7 rounds (1 more than most national tournaments) and only breaking to octas, it’s inevitable that many of the top teams in the tournament will have 2 losses going into rd 7. If you look at the results, 80% of losses by teams that broke were to each other… someone has to lose those rounds (and with only 1 judge and 2 closely matched teams it could be either team). As several have said, what’s going on here has nothing to do with judging and everything to do with the very high average quality of teams at the TOC and the small percentage of the pool (smaller than at almost any national tournament) that breaks.
Where is the results packet available?
Just for the record, an Ohio State referee did rob UM of a national title (football for those of you who don’t know)
oh, and that guy who said losses were to other break teams, Charles and myself have a habit of losing to teams that don’t break. We lost to Vanderguard who were very nice guys and I think went 1-6, and at Crestian we lost two rounds to two novice teams (literally novices). Instead of arguing about this tournament though, I suggest you all go see Star Trek. I just saw it and it was amazing. If you hate special effects, wait for Angels and Demons. That looks promising too.
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