Blue Valley hosted the Kansas State Debate Championship on Friday, Jan. 17 and Saturday, Jan. 18, with the BV Debate team taking the 2014 State title.
The four-speaker debate team who won the tournament for BV consisted of juniors Emma Gunnar and Arjun Prakash and seniors Josh Jilovec and Ajay Subramanian.
Prakash said winning State was a big accomplishment for the team.
“It is always difficult to actually win [State] because there are always so many great teams in Kansas,” Prakash said. “The main challenge was that we were in first place the whole tournament, so it was hard to make sure to keep composed and not allow the pressure to affect our performance.”
Jilovec said it was great to have the support of his team during the tournament.
“My favorite part was sharing the title with my team,” he said. “Lots of them were there helping out since it was at our school. Our junior team also did extremely well, and they had the harder side as the negative team.”
Prakash said he was glad the tournament was hosted at BV.
“My favorite part about State was that we were hosting it this year and that [Principal Scott] Bacon was able to be there to give us our trophies,” Prakash said.
Subramanian said the team had to keep a good mindset during the tournament.
“Since the rounds are one after another, you have to regroup really quickly,” he said. “You have to put all of it behind you and move on to the next round focused and ready to debate.”
Gunnar said the State competition was challenging for the team, despite their early lead.
“It was a lot of debate rounds back to back,” she said. “My team did excellent, and without them, none of this would have been possible.”
Subramanian said it feels great to have won a championship.
“There was a possibility my class would never see a debate State championship throughout all four years, so I’m really glad we brought the trophy back to BV before we graduate,” he said.
Gunnar said for her and the team, winning State was an amazing achievement.
“My favorite part about State was all of the amazing debaters we were able to compete with,” she said. “I’m very proud to have been a part of the team and believe that this was our goal from the start.”