USC wins debate
The Upper St. Clair Speech & Debate team won the Pennsylvania High School Speech League (PHSSL) state championship for the third time since 2017. The team defeated North Allegheny in three major categories – Debate Sweepstakes, Speech Sweepstakes and Overall Large School Sweepstakes.
Seniors Rushikesh Kulkarni and Dev Patel closed out their careers in Parliamentary Debate with a 5-0 victory over North Allegheny in the state final round to win USC’s fourth championship in the event. They were 15-1 on ballots throughout the tournament.
Juniors Qadir Khan and Daniel Wang advanced to the finals in Public Forum Debate but eventually fell to North Allegheny.
In total, 46 USC students – representing 34 entries – qualified to compete in the event. Of those, 26 students – 19 entries – advanced to the second day of competition.
The following advanced to Debate Semifinal Rounds or the Congress SuperSession (Top 4):
- Juniors Jack Miller and Patrick Nowak – Parliamentary Debate
- Senior Eva Rankin and Junior Edythe McCurrie – Public Forum Debate
- Junior Priyanka Palayekar – third place, Congress House
- Junior Ansh Goyal – third place, Congress Senate
The following advanced to speech State Final Rounds (Top 6):
- Seniors Rhea Punjabi & Nivedha Suresh – second place, News Broadcasting
- Senior Shivani Jajoo – third place, Commentary
- Senior Esha Lahoti – fourth place, Informative
- Senior Evan Barker – fourth place, Prose
- Senior Shana Reddy – sixth place, Informative
The following advanced to quarterfinals in Debate (Top 8): Jasmine Dietiker, Extemporaneous Debate; Isabel Vilensky and Theeya Chen, Parliamentary Debate; Saif Durrani, Lincoln-Douglas Debate; Sambhav Saggi, Lincoln-Douglas Debate; and Ammar Kethavath and Will Bacdayan, Public Forum Debate.
The following reached the semifinals in Speech events (Top 12): Arnav Kumar, Dramatic Interpretation; Saif bin Hammad, Commentary; Nitin Chandran, Extemporaneous; Cameron Weber, Extemporaneous; and Rosemary Ramirez, Impromptu.
The following qualified for the state tournament through either the bid system (three bids throughout the season for auto-qualification) or at the district qualifier: Ujal Gautam, Senate; Jack Loomis, Senate; Ashe Sobel-Drum, Senate; Maya Talasela, Poetry; Cadence Golden, Poetry; Scott Cheung and Nitish Sharma, Public Forum Debate; Maanasa Reddy, Persuasive; Priyasha Itani, Persuasive; Matthew Hrehocik, Extemporaneous; Henry Zheng, Extemporaneous; Shubham Patel and Shiven Verma, Policy Debate; and Daniel Paulick, Commentary. Ashley Eichberg and Shreya Golakiya, Policy Debate; and Henry Ginsburg, Extemporaneous Debate, qualified, but were unable to compete at States.