Stuy S&D Update #4: December 11, 2025

Dear Speech & Debate families,

Stuyvesant Speech and Debate continued our streak of excellence at the Emily Clemente Tournament at The Chapin School (12/6). With three champions, two runners up, a third place speaker, and many first timers, students had an amazing time bonding over the fierce local competition. Our speech team won a Sweepstakes. We're thankful for the help of Ms. Sheinman, 3 parents, and 5 upperclassmen officers.

Debaters took on the 4th Annual TOC Digital Series 1 tournament (12/6-7). Over 45 entries debated teams from across the nation with the combined effort of many student judges, coaches, and parents. Our team placed throughout octofinals to finals; see our features on the Tournament of Champions Instagram. This weekend was a representation of our community's teamwork, sportsmanship, and unity. Upperclassmen helped JV and Rising Star competitors. Coaches and parents supported our 250+ student program.

Throughout the holiday season, the team is grateful for the consistent hard work of all teammates and the commitment from Ms. Sheinman, the Stuyvesant administration, and our coaches. The team is about to tackle the Ridge Debates (12/12-14) this weekend. To support Ridge and further trips, we would greatly appreciate any and all donations to help us travel, compete, and grow together this year.

Please see the each format's update from this successful weekend!

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Team Updates

Congress:

Stuy Congress continues to prepare for Christmas Chlassic! Our novices have taken the past few weeks to work on intros, speaking, and argumentation with their novice directors to prepare them for the competition. We’re all excited to see how they do on the 20th!

Extemp:

Stuy Extemp has been on a roll this entire season! This past Saturday, our JV Extempers competed at Chapin and did incredibly well. Devi Ahuja (‘29) placed 3rd and Uthsho Khan (‘28) was 8th, both earning half qualifications for the State Championships. We appreciate the dedication of Stuy Extemp’s novices, JVers, and JV Directors who have made for such a strong early season. Additionally, this same weekend Myles Vuong placed 4th overall at the TOC Digitals finishing his qualification to the TOC! Our team is high spirited through frequent practices and excited for the Winter season. Stuy Extemp is ready to compete at the Chaminade Invitational on 1/10 next month! 

Lincoln Douglas:

Stuy LD excelled at TOC Digitals this weekend! In varsity, Emily Johnson (‘28) made it to octos, placing 16th out of 175! Emily is also now fully qualified for states. Additionally, Mufei Yu (‘27) and Galvin Chen (‘26) broke to runoffs, both earning half quals to states! Evelyn Lifton (‘27) also went even.

In rising stars, our novices did awesome at their first national tournament! Congratulations to Angel Situ (‘28) for making it to quarters, placing 5th overall and as 2nd speaker. Congrats as well to Valerie Yiu (‘29) for making octofinals and placing as 8th speaker, as well as Iha Bauskar (‘28) and Mursal Hoque (‘29) for breaking to runoffs with winning records. They all earned half quals to states, with Valerie now being fully qualified! Finally, Isaac Yeung (‘29), Danny Chen (‘29), Mia Kan (‘29), Allie Wong (‘29), and Madison Munch (‘28) also had even records, with Isaac and Danny both losing close bubble rounds.

Thank you to our parent volunteers, alumni Lauren Chin (‘23), Henry Ji (‘24), Princeden Hom (‘25), and Daniel Zheng (‘25), and team members Yuna Lee (‘26), Ellie Mak (‘26), Alexis Qian (‘27), and Kiren Sitwala (‘27) for judging and supporting our team!

We have been preparing for Ridge, which is our novices’ first travel tournament. We can’t wait to see our team continue its success!

Policy:

Our JV and Varsity debaters fought hard at the TOC Digitals this past weekend! 

Manya Gautam (‘28) and Olivia Gao (‘28), competed in Varsity as Junior Varsity debaters, and excelled! Special shoutout to Manya Gautam (‘28), who received a perfect score in speaking! Rahul Kissoon (‘26) and Kassandra Sinchi (‘26) broke even as well. 

Ivan Meng Ze Huang (‘28), Angeline Chan (‘28), Ilham Nabhan (‘28), and Alvin Jiang (‘28) all competed in Rising Star at TOC Digitals as well!

We’re looking forward to preparing for Ridge, our novice’s first travel tournament. 

Public Forum:

Our novice and JV debaters did incredibly well at the TOC Digitals just this past weekend, with all 8 teams that competed breaking into elimination rounds!

Congrats to Calista Harrington (‘28) and Arya Rajda (‘28), as well as Jiayu Chen (‘29) and Kayla Chiang (‘29) for making Doubles. Congratulations also to Yuanxin Li (‘29), Avril Wei (‘29), Karthik Chanda (‘29), Becker Chan (‘29), Rachael Lee (‘29), and Eric Xu (‘29) for breaking into the Octofinals round. Ariya Jain (‘29) and Grant Liu (‘29) also did amazing, breaking into Quarterfinals! Finally, shoutout to both Zachary Massim (‘28) and Sasha Silakov (‘28) and Aran Advani (‘29) and Sohaib Shahbaz (‘29) for making it to Semi-finals!!!!

Looking forward, we are excited to see our debaters continue to succeed at the Ridge Debates this coming weekend, and start preparation for the upcoming January topic on extraction of natural resources! 

Speech:

Our team did exceptionally well at Chapin this weekend! In Varsity Oral Interpretation, Ananya Gupta (‘27) was runner up and Anna Schaible (‘28) was champion! Both earned a half qual to the State Championship. In Original Oratory, Zoe Yoon (‘28) was 2nd and Amanda Greenberg (‘26) was champion. Both earned a half qual and Zoe completed her full qualification for states! In Junior Varsity Oral Interpretation, Isabella Wong (‘28) was 9th, Jeney Jyothi (‘29) was 8th, Gina Chen was 7th, and Claire Stansberry (‘28) was champion. Claire also completed her qualification for states! In Declamation, Angelina Lee (‘28) placed 8th. 

Shoutout to seniors Audrey Hilger, Ariana Lin, Lily Wagman, and Olivia Cisse for judging! 

We have been preparing for Chaminade where Speech and Congress will compete next. Look out! 

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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.

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