The Orange Coast College Speech and Debate team competed in the El Camino Crossman Virtual Tournament, taking place on Oct. 16-18. Although competing online is a new venture for OCC’s championship forensics program, the Pirates rose to the occasion, placing third overall in a larger-than-normal field of competitors.
“Typically, tournaments at the beginning of the competitive season tend to be smaller events where only local schools attend,” explains Director of Forensics Sherana Polk. “But one of the intriguing aspects about competing during a pandemic is that schools no longer need to travel in order to compete. Therefore, the Crossman tournament this year was quite larger than expected.”
Thirty-six schools from all over the country attended the virtual competition, with 280 entries spanning individual and debate events. “OCC’s coaching staff is very impressed with our students’ performance this past weekend,” says Polk. “Not only have our students had to learn how to compete in these events while on Zoom; but they also have had to deal with obtaining the necessary equipment and learning how to be their own IT specialists. Even with these challenges, our team showed that we would not let the pandemic get in the way of our success.”
The results of the events are as follows:
Debate Events
Jon Paley earned a Bronze in Open IPDA Debate
Kat Villanueva earned a Bronze in Novice IPDA Debate
Cameron Pettus earned a Bronze in Open IPDA Debate
Frank Consoli earned a Gold in Novice IPDA Debate
Individual Events
Ashley Lindsay earned a 4th Place in Open Persuasion
Jinno Vicencio earned a 1st Place in Open Poetry
The Orange Coast College Speech, Debate, and Theatre team’s next tournament is the October Surprise Virtual Tournament hosted by Mt. San Antonio College on October 24-25.