UK Wins Inaugural Tri-State Tournament
LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 8, 2017) — The University of Kentucky Speech and Debate Team won the first Tri-State Invitational Speech and Debate Tournament held at Gateway Community and Technical College. Thirteen schools from Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina and Tennessee gathered in Florence, Kentucky, for the competition. UK placed first in the combined sweepstakes division, which totals points earned for each team from both the speech and debate events. UK also placed first in the speech events sweepstakes and second in debate sweepstakes.
In total, competitors from UK earned top awards in nine of the 14 events offered at the tournament including winning both divisions of parliamentary debate. Sophomore Matt Karijolic also placed first in the individual sweepstakes competition and was awarded the title of tournament champion. Much like the team sweepstakes competition, individual sweepstakes totals all of the points earned by a competitor from all of their public speaking events. Team members from UK earned five of the six awards in this category. Junior Rachel Brase placed second, senior Sam Northrup placed third, junior Kaylon Kennedy placed fourth, and freshman Laura McAllister earned top novice in individual sweepstakes.
“It was a great way to conclude our regular season this year,” said Director of Speech and Debate Timothy Bill. “We’ve had a wonderful year so far. Now we have two weeks to finish preparing for nationals.”
A full list of awards earned by UK competitors can be found here.
The University of Kentucky Speech and Debate Team is committed to training the next generation of civic leaders who are passionate about effecting change in their communities. To foster these skills, the team takes part in competitions throughout the southeast region of the United States.
The team’s next competition will be the Pi Kappa Delta National Tournament and Convention held at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho, March 21-25.
UK Speech and Debate is a student organization in the School of Information Science in the College of Communication and Information. The team regularly competes in 12 public speaking events and three forms of debate. To find out more, please visit the team’s website at www.ukforensics.com.