WMS English teacher and debate team coach Gaspare Lipari with Catherine Utzinger, Nicole Craighead and Erin Morlock. Contributed photo
Last weekend the Western Middle School Debate Team entered the Connecticut Middle School Debate League tournament that was held on April 21 at Eastern Middle School.
Western’s Debate Team entered this parliamentary style debate competition for the first time ever, with four separate teams each with three debaters, representing all three grades at Western.
Eight of the 12 debaters had no debate experience.
The Western Debate Team went up against 81 other teams consisting of 224 debaters from 23 different schools.
The topic debated was “This House believes that Artificial Intelligence will do more good than harm.”
Western won six of the debates in the three rounds of competition and the loses were extremely close, with one round lost by just 1/2 a point.
Western’s 8th grade team, consisting of Catherine Utzinger, Nicole Craighead, and Erin Morlock, went undefeated, outperforming 76 teams to come in first in the State for novices and fifth place overall.
The other stars of the debate team were: Dani Pompa, Carina Szabo, Mia Cernigliaro, Erin Mann, Max Lu, Hanna Klingbeil, Annie Clark, Avery Imp and Jane Stempien.
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