The Belmont Abbey College Debate Team took two of our second-year students to compete at the virtual St. Anselm College tournament last weekend. Overall, the tournament welcomed 20 schools from across the country. This included several fellow Northern Tier Debate Conference institutions, from Penn State University to Hillsdale College. Isabella Barrett competed in IPDA, while Paloma Shrauder participated in Lincoln Douglas.
IPDA hosted one open division for students with varying years of experience. While sophomore Isabella Barrett is still a novice for debate, she tied for sixth place in win/loss records and narrowly missed quarterfinals based on secondary tie-breakers. Isabella also earned an impressive 94% of total speaking points possible and was honored with third place for overall speaking.
The primary goal of this tournament for Lincoln Douglas was to serve as a learning experience for students beginning the LD debate format for the year. In that endeavor, sophomore Paloma Shrauder performed well in the junior varsity division, earning over 85% of possible speaking points.