Debate team secures prize
Liberty defeats Kansas to win CEDA National Tournament sweepstakes
As the year draws to a close, the Liberty University debate team competed at the Cross-Examination Debate Association (CEDA) National Tournament, which took place March 20-23 in Wichita, Kansas.
Distinction — The debate team traveled to Kansas to add another accolade to the trophy case. Photo provided
Liberty’s debate team was able to gain enough points to win the CEDA sweepstakes.
“Everyone was very excited,” Michael Hall, director of debate, said. “First of all, our goal was to win the sweepstakes … Especially coming off of (what happened) last year made us refocus our efforts. It was very gratifying to win CEDA.”
According to Hall, the CEDA National Tournament is a tournament open to universities across the country. The top three in the running for the CEDA sweepstakes were Liberty, George Mason University and Kansas University.
However, the sweepstakes came down to Liberty and Kansas as the final two. Liberty was able to seal the sweepstakes award when Kansas’ second place team was eliminated in the round of 16 teams.
The CEDA National Tournament also has a competition for teams of two to debate different arguments. Liberty took Megan Edwards (senior) and Vida Chiri (junior) as well as Kaitlyn Schiess (junior) and Leonora Cane (junior).
Each team debates a total of eight times. They debate four times on the affirmative side where they choose the topic and four times on the negative side where their opponent chooses the topic.
During the competition, all teams debated every aspect of legalizing online gambling, physician-assisted suicide, prostitution, marijuana and organ sales.
According to Hall, Edwards and Chiri were the team expected to win the whole competition. They have been doing very well this year and are Liberty’s top team. However, they were eliminated in the octo-final round, which is the final 16 teams.
“This was a little disappointing,” Hall said. “We were competing to win the tournament. There were so many variables, I feel like we didn’t lose (the tournament). … We just ended up losing this debate.”
Edwards and Chiri debated the legalization of prostitution when they were on the affirmative side and able to choose the topic.
According to Hall, Schiess and Cane ended up finishing the competition in the middle of pack. They won four of eight debates. When on the affirmative side, their debate of choice was the legalization of marijuana.
“We didn’t finish as well as we wanted to,” Hall said. “Things could have been done differently, but we will file those away for next year.”
Towson University won the two-person debate competition beating Kansas 7-2 in the final round of debate.
There were 116 teams entered in the two-person debate at the CEDA National Tournament.
The Liberty debate team is now looking forward to competing at the National Debate Tournament (NDT) April 3-6. Edwards, Chiri, Schiess and Cane are preparing to go once again. The whole team will also have the opportunity to win another sweepstakes award. The NDT is the final debate tournament of the year.
FROST is a news reporter.