Middle School Debate Team Wins State Championship

Sixteen Middle School debate students competed in the Texas State Middle School Speech and Debate Tournament on May 2 and 3 at Thomas Jefferson High School. The tournament had 33 schools from all over the state (both public and private) competing, and this was the first time Greenhill competed in an in-person Middle School State tournament.

Ultimately, Greenhill's two teams “closed out” the final round of World Schools Debate and were crowned State Champions!

The teams of Lekha Chavala ’29, Liam Flanagan ’29, Hayden Sebold ’29, and Andrew Sharma ’29, along with Joshua Chan ’29, Evan Huang ’29, and Adam Tawil ’29, each won their semifinal debates on unanimous decisions, which allowed both teams to reach the finals and close out the World Schools division.

The team of Daniella Antypas ’29, Divya Chamarthy ’29, Brooklyn Dean ’29, Sana Oblumpally ’29, and Aashi Punnam ’29 was undefeated in the preliminary rounds and lost a close debate in the semifinals.

Greenhill students also won individual speaker awards. In World Schools Debate, Divya Chamarthy ’29 was the top individual speaker, followed by Brooklyn Dean ’29 as the fourth-best speaker, Lekha Chavala ’29 as the 10th-best speaker, and Liam Flanagan ’29 as the 11th-best individual speaker.

Andrew Zheng ’29 and Aditi Karthik ’29 competed in Lincoln Douglas Debate, and they were the fourth- and sixth-best individual speakers at the tournament. Amrita Madhavanur ’29 and Maahi Varma ’29 competed in policy debate.

Congratulations to all the students who competed! Keep up to date with our Debate teams by following them on Instagram.