The Bellarmine Speech and Debate team has returned as champions from a marathon week of competition in the National Championship Tournament held in Louisville, Kentucky.
Thirty-one Bellarmine students participated in the first in-person tournament held since March 2020, and this one is considered to the most competitive tournament of the season. The Bells had an outstanding performance, with 24 Bellarmine students breaking to elimination rounds. “In addition, Bellarmine won the School of Outstanding Distinction Award, which is given to the top 10 schools at the tournament (based on combined speech and debate sweepstakes results) and since our sweepstake points were well above every other school in the country, we can officially say that for the second year in a row, Bellarmine Speech and Debate is the #1 team in the nation!”, said head coach Aaron Langerman ’11.
The full results from the tournament are as follows:
Policy Debate:
- Ram Gorthi and Akhil Iyengar ’22 – 2nd place finalists and top speakers (Ram was ranked 1st speaker in the tournament, and Akhil 2nd). This is the second year in a row that Bellarmine had a team in the finals of Nationals.
- Nihaal Konda and Jeremy Wang ’23 – 10th place, earning them an auto-qualifier to attend next year’s Nationals.
- Shae McInnis and Andrew Huang ’24 – top 20
National Extemp:
- Kush Narang ’22 – 2nd place finalist
- Anthony Reynolds ’22 – Quarterfinalist (top 30)
- Ani Mani ’23 – Octafinalist (top 60)
- Arnav Aggarwal ’25 – Octafinalist (top 60)
International Extemp:
- Majid Shabbeer ’22 – 3rd place finalist
- Ryan Alappatt ’22 – Octafinalist (top 60)
- Oliver Owen ’23 – Octafinalist (top 60)
- Rohit Vakkalagadda ’24 – Octafinalist (top 60)
Congressional Debate:
- Veer Juneja ’22 – 3rd place finalist (Senate)
- Akilan Dorairaj ’24 – Semifinalist (House)
- Varun Vemulapalli ’23 – Quarterfinalist (House)
- Aswin Surya ’23 – Quarterfinalist (House)
Original Oratory:
- Nathan Kang ’22 – Quarterfinalist (top 30)
- Michael Lutz ’22 – Quarterfinalist (top 30)
- Saketh Dasaradhi ’24 – Quarterfinalist (top 30)
- John Xu ’22 – Octafinalist (top 60)
Informative Speaking (Expos):
- Gavin Griffin ’24 – Octafinalist (top 60)
World Schools:
- Ben Manens ’22, competing with other members of our California Coast District – Octafinalist (top 16)
Congratulations to the team on a championship season, and to coaches Aaron Langerman ‘11, DeeDee Sullivan, Matt DeLateur ‘12, Vern Cleary, Xavier Liu ’17, Tyler Vergho ’19, Adarsh Hiremath ’21, and Surya Midha ’21.