On the 20th and 21st of November, the McClintock High School’s Speech and Debate team placed first at the 30th Annual Dobson Invitational.

“It really wasn’t surprising. I knew from the second we got on the bus and drove to Dobson that our team was ready to kill it. Everyone brought their full effort. We had so many competitors in finals round that I was pretty sure we were going to get first,” commented senior Tess Green on the win.

This is the team’s first top place finish in recent years, leaving them extremely excited afterwards.

“This is my third year on the speech and debate team, and this tournament was the first time that we have won first. DV is known to always win tournaments and when we beat them, it served as a reminder for our team members that we are good enough to do it again. On our bus ride home, we all joined in unison, singing ‘We Are the Champions’ by Queen,” said Green.

Their achievement did not come without effort, but it was all worth it to the students.

“We’ve worked incredibly hard all year and we did so well in both debate and speech that I knew we were racking up some serious sweepstakes points,” said senior Huanvy Phan, who competed in Varsity Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Poetry, and Impromptu Speaking, “Our strategy was [to] basically perform our hearts out in every round as if it were our last. We gave each performance our all and it and off in the end.”

The team does not believe this was a one-off accomplishment either. They aim to keep on taking top finishes if they can.

“I know that we can achieve this level of success again,” Phan said, “We’re one of the best teams in the state and we have all worked so hard and made so much progress, and everyone on the team continues to do nothing but improve and rise.”

The next ASDCA sanctioned Speech and Debate event is the ASU Southwest Championships, which take place during the 7th, 8th, and 9th of January.