Stuy S&D Update #3: November 26, 2025

Dear Speech & Debate families,

Stuyvesant Speech and Debate has blown regional and statewide competition out of the water for the past few weekends. At the Scarsdale Invitational (11/8), over 65 Stuy underclassmen competed against schools from the tri-state area while 16 of our team's upperclassmen volunteered to judge. With the help of our administration and 6 parents, our two-bus operation was a fun and successful ride. It was a trip full of great feedback, many qualifications to States, and pizza. Speakers and Congressional debaters then tackled the Interleague Tournament at St. Francis Prep (11/15) which hosted all three Speech leagues from New York City and Long Island. With incredible performances and parent support, the team showed up, placing 2nd in Sweepstakes.

As Thanksgiving approaches, the team is grateful for the shared commitment and practice of all teammates and the dedication of parent chaperones, Ms. Sheinman, Coach Sasan, Ms. Protass, Ms. Parris, and Mr. Wang. As we enter the busy new Speech and Debate year, we would greatly appreciate any and all donations to help us travel, compete, and learn this year.

Please see the updates from each format before the Holiday season!

---

Team Updates

Congress:

Stuy Congress competed at Sr. Raimonde on October 25th, where sophomore Raisha Tayba and junior Kelvin Zhang placed 28th and 23rd in finals, respectively. This was also our novices’ first tournament, and we’re incredibly proud of their performances in prelims against dozens of varsity competitors, receiving several top five ranks in their chambers! 

Last week, novice and JV Congress competed at the Scarsdale Invitational, debating topics like redistricting and rubber production. Here, sophomore Alice Frank ranked 2nd (just one point away from placing first) and freshman Richard Kiselev ranked 9th overall out of 36 competitors, with Alice fully qualifying out for the 2026 NYCFL State Championships!

Stuy Congress continued its winning streak at Interleague last weekend, with freshman (!!) Richard Kiselev and sophomore Charlie Vater placing 7th and 14th out of over 50 competitors! Our next tournament is the Christmas Chlassic on December 20th, so we’ll be taking the month to relax and prepare for one of the most competitive tournaments of the year.

Extemp:

On October 25th, Stuy Extemp competed at the Sister Raimonde Service Tournament at Bronx Science. In Junior Varsity Extemp, two sophomores broke to Finals and received half qualifications to states: Sam Bokor (4th) and Minato Goto (11th). In Varsity Extemp, junior Vicky Shi broke to finals. Many questions about CBS news, state energy grids, and constitutional crises were drawn.

JV Extemp also competed at the Scarsdale Invitational. Three of our Extempers–two being novices–were honored and received half qualifications for states; Caitlyn Lee (5th), Gabriel Solis (7th), Minato Goto (9th). Extempers spoke on topics from inflation and the COP 30 to Sudan and judicial term limits.

And just this past weekend, Extemp swept the Interleague Tournament at St. Francis Prep, where Stuyvesant Extempers made up nearly half of the finals pool. We had another strong showing from our JVers, with Maria Lima-Corcoran in 2nd, Caitlyn Lee in 5th, Sam Bokor in 6th, Devi Ahuja in 10th, and Uthsho Khan in 12th. Varsity Extemp also swept the finals pool, with Myles Vuong in 2nd, Vincent Wu in 5th, Elina Siu in 6th, Melanie Xie in 8th, Alina Dong in 11th, and Abiyan Alam in 14th. Maria, Caitlyn, and Elina are now fully qualified for states! Congratulations to everyone who competed! We are forever grateful for the returning and new parent judges that made this trip possible.

We are immensely proud of everyone on our team and can’t wait to blow everyone’s hats away at Chapin soon!

Lincoln Douglas:

Our novice and JV debaters crushed it at Little Bronx, ODL 2, Scarsdale, and Mini Bronx! At Little Bronx, novice Madeleine Hustad (‘29) was undefeated and placed 5th overall, earning a half qual to states. Additionally, novices Angel Situ (‘28), Valerie Yiu (‘29), Allie Wong (‘29), and Mia Kan (‘29) all received awards, and Ethan Wang (‘29), Madison Munch (‘28), Daniel Braj (‘28), and Reagan Joshi (‘28) also had winning records. Tiffany Ge (‘29) and Angel Situ (‘28) were 6th and 7th speakers, respectively. In JV, Ethan Chen (‘28) placed 4th and was 2nd speaker, and Emily Johnson (‘28) also went positive.

Our novices swept ODL 2, with Danny Chen (‘29) championing the tournament, going undefeated and placing as 2nd speaker, earning a half qual. Additionally, Eddie Chu (‘29) also earned a half qual, placing 3rd overall and as 4th speaker. Iha Bauskar (‘28), Valerie Yiu (‘29), and Allie Wong (‘29) also had winning records, placing 5th, 6th, and 7th, respectively! Shoutout to Mia Kan (‘29) for top speaker, and Emily Yoe (‘29), Iha, Valerie, and Allie for 6th, 7th, 8th, and 10th speaker, respectively!

Additionally, at Scarsdale, Mia Kan (‘29), Madeleine Hustad (‘29), and Valerie Yiu (‘29) all placed, with Mia earning a half qual and Madeleine completing her qualification for states! Mia was also 5th speaker and Madeleine was 9th speaker. In addition, in JV, Ethan Chen (‘28) placed 5th overall and as 5th speaker, also earning a half qual! Shoutout to Elian Chan (‘28) for competing in JV for the first time! LD debaters examined the rewilding topic, expanding upon their knowledge at the next tournament.

Finally, at Mini Bronx, novice Valerie Yiu (‘29) was undefeated and placed 5th, earning a half qual. Also in novice, Mia Kan (‘29), Iha Bauskar (‘28), Isaac Yeung (‘29), Kathy Zhang (‘29), Elian Chan (‘28), and Reagan Joshi (‘28) all received awards, and Mursal Hoque (‘29), Madison Munch (‘28), Allie Wong (‘29), Jordan Zhou (‘28), and Emily Yoe (‘29) all had winning records. Additionally, shoutout to Mia, Iha and Valerie for placing as the 4th, 7th, and 10th speakers, respectively. Lastly, in JV, Emily Johnson (‘28) was undefeated, 3rd speaker, and placed 2nd, earning a half qual to states. Ethan Chen (‘28) was 3rd overall and top speaker, Austin Guo (‘28) had a winning record, and Ben Hayes (‘28) was 5th speaker. Shoutout to Madeleine Hustad (‘29) for competing in JV for the first time!

As always, thank you to all of our student and parent judges for volunteering their time to support our team. We’re so proud of all of our underclassmen and can’t wait to see them continue to kill it at Digitals, Ridge, and the Christmas Chlassich in December!

Parli:

Parli had a great time at the NYPDL’s November Tournaments! At November In-Person at Rye country day Max Schwartz and Jacob Spitzer made it to quarterfinals! We’re incredibly proud of everyone who debated at this tournament. Last weekend at the NYPDL’s Online Tournament, we swept the tournament away with Alexander Georgatos and Lucas Miller winning finals! Congrats to Rhys Black and Paul Stipp, Yubin Li and Kano Pollick, and Theodore Kowalski and Sophie Wong for making it to varsity octofinals ! Congrats to Rhys Black for getting 2ND in speaker awards, Lucas Miller for getting 7th in speaker awards and Alexander Georgatos for getting 10th in speaker awards! Parli looks forward to another month of debate in December! 

Policy:

Our novice and JV debaters had a lot of fun at our first three locals of the season! 

At ODL 2, Manya Gautam (‘28) and Olivia Gao (‘28) CHAMPIONED the JV division, going undefeated and placing as the 1st and 2nd speaker respectively. Our novices also gained a lot of valuable experience at their first tournament ever. Two weeks later, Policy returned with a bang at ODL 3 and Mini Bronx. At ODL 3, Kirk Soffer (‘29) and Aminur Rehen (‘29) placed 4th overall. Our JV had a lot of fun with some of their first experiences on the national circuit as well!

At Mini Bronx, 4 of our novice teams competed at their first in-person tournament of the season. Kamron Nizamidinov (‘27) and Jamal Patel (‘27) achieved a winning record. Jamal and Shanil Ashraf (‘29) were also ranked in the top 10 speakers across the entire division. Thanks so much to all of our upperclassmen and student judges for making this possible, and we can’t wait to see what our underclassmen accomplish next! We’re looking forward to preparing for Ridge, our novices’ first travel tournament.

Public Forum:

Our novices did an amazing job at Little Bronx, ODL 2, and Scarsdale! 

At Little Bronx, the first tournament of the season for the novices, they absolutely rocked it! The teams of Sasha Sirotkin(‘29) and Levon Tzvetanov(‘29), Sohaib Shahbaz(‘29) and Karthik Chanda(‘29), and Ariya Jain(‘29) and Grant Liu(‘29) all went undefeated and received half-quals for the state championship. The whole team did incredibly, and many of our other novice teams received winning records. 

Our novices also dominated ODL 2, with Aran Advani(‘29) and Yuanxin Li(‘29) going undefeated as well as receiving a half-qual for states. Congrats also to Rachael Lee(‘29) and Eric Xu(‘29) for receiving a 3-1 winning record and half-qual, and Ava Umyn(‘29) and Avril Wei(‘29) for also receiving a winning record. 

Lastly, all of our novices also spoke incredibly, but a special congratulations to Eric Xu(‘29) for receiving the #1 overall speaker. 

Additionally, at Scarsdale, Sohaib Shahbaz(‘29) and Karthik Chanda(‘29) also went undefeated, placing 2nd overall and qualifying for states. Congrats to Aran Advani(‘29) and Yuanxin Li(‘29) for coming in 3rd overall and qualifying for states as well. Additionally, three more teams received winning records and half-quals for states: in 4th place - Samuel Jiang(‘29) and Winter Costanzo(‘29), in 5th place - Rachael Lee(‘29) and Kayla Chiang(‘29), and in 6th place - Natasha Chiu(‘29) and Harper Chen(‘29). Additionally, shoutouts to Ava Umyn(‘29) and Avril Wei(‘29), as well as Ariya Jain(‘29) and Grant Liu(‘29), for receiving 3-1 winning records as well.

Last but not least, our team also competed at the University of Michigan Invitational this weekend. Congrats to Adrien Devery-Michaelson(‘27) and Lander Bovenzi(‘27) for breaking into Octofinals, and Sasha Silakov(‘28) and Ethan Zheng(‘27) for achieving an even record. 

We’re looking forward to seeing our novices continue to dominate at the locals coming up, and prepare for future tournaments!

Speech:

Our novices and returning members did an amazing job at Little Bronx! In Duo Interpretation, juniors Micah Bierne and Mariya Markova championed. In Varsity Oral Interpretation, junior Vivian Lin placed 3rd and junior Aarushi Jain 5th. In Original Oratory, junior Wendy Wang placed 6th. In Declamation, sophomore Tiffany Wang placed 5th. In JV Oral Interpretation, sophomore Anna Schaible was runner up.  

At Scarsdale, we absolutely killed it! In JV Oral Interpretation, Gina Chen placed 8th, Kimberly Nguyen 7th, Anna Schaible 5th, and Claire Stansberry was champion! In Declamation, Angelina Lee placed 10th and Tiffany Wang 5th! Upperclassmen Ananya Gupta, Amanda Greenberg, and Xili Chen had an awesome time judging! 

The Stuyvesant Speech took the Interleague Tournament at St. Francis Prep by storm! The team had tons of fun competing (and running around trying to find rooms)! In Original Oratory, sophomore Zoe Yoon championed and got a half qual! In Dramatic Performance junior Jaydon Mei placed 3rd and a half qual! In Declamation, sophomore Sasha Gogolin was 14th and freshman Eric Chen 6th. In JV Oral Interpretation, freshman Vismary Castillo placed 7th and sophomore Anna Schaible championed and completed her qual to the State Tournament! We are so excited to continue our season at Chapin! Look out for Stuy Speech! 

---

Thank you for taking the time to read this update! We appreciate your time and effort to support the team. Don’t hesitate to reach out with any concerns or ideas.

We hope you found it informative and enjoyable. If you liked this update, please consider sharing it with your friends and family who may also be interested.

If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback, don't hesitate to reach out to us by responding to this email or contacting stuy4n6@gmail.com and mvuong60@stuy.edu. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

For those who were forwarded this email and are interested in receiving future updates, please type in your email at the bottom of this page to subscribe to our mailing list. We look forward to keeping you in the loop about all things Stuyvesant Speech & Debate!