On Saturday, March 12, the debate team sent its best members to compete in the Conference meet. One Public Forum team and one Lincoln-Douglas debater will advance to the next level, the regionals meet, in the hopes of making it to the state meet. Harrisonburg has been successful at the state meet in the last two years, with alumni Jack Adamek winning in 2014 and Evan Dotas placing second in 2015. Both students were senior members of the Lincoln-Douglas (LD) debate strand, and both were team captains.

Junior John Niland, co-captain of the LD team this year, will be advancing to the regionals meet. He was unimpressed by the quality of the conference tournament.

“It was held at John Handley, which is an extremely impressive school, but the quality of the tournament didn’t reflect my initial reactions of the school,” Niland said. John Handley is typically the team’s biggest competition at the elite levels.

“It seemed as if Handley had never held a tournament before and did a pathetic attempt at a Round Robin,” Niland said. There were “lay” judges for the Policy debate team, which usually requires expert judging. “Lay” judges are judges without any experience in the field of debate.

The top four LD debaters were all within four points of each other, with a tie between the 4th and 3rd place contestants. Niland tied for third, but his mean average put him into the fourth place finish.

“I feel as if I performed well for the circumstances, but I still feel like my performance would have been better [in a better tournament],” Niland said.

Juniors Aries Ametsreiter and Zach Benevento-Zahner, who made up the Public Forum team, placed third in the competition and will be advancing. The other two LD competitors, senior Brian Baber and junior Harmony Wilson placed 8th and 5th, respectively.