The success of the Westwood High School Speech and Debate team continues this school year as the team recently received first place and was awarded champion at the University of Texas at Austin tournament.
Over 115 high schools from 10 different states competed at this national tier competition.
Westwood not only received the First Place Debate Team honors but also won the First Place Overall Speech and Debate Team Sweepstakes award. This is the first year in the program’s history that they have received both awards at the University of Texas. With the impressive performance, the team continues to reinforce their ranking as the top program in Texas and the tenth best program in the United States.
Top award winners include Westwood junior Anurima Mummaneni who earned first place in the event of Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking. With her win, she is now double qualified for the National Tournament of Champions. Fellow juniors Vikas Burugu and Daniel Shi also earned First Place in the event of Policy Debate. The win secured their qualification to the Tournament of Champions.
Tournament Results
Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking
- Linette Page, 7th Place
Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking
- Anurima Mummaneni, 1st Place
- Emily Gao, 8th Place
Varsity Lincoln Douglas (LD) Debate
- Saavan Myneni, 13th Place
- Truman Le, 14th Place
- Alice Zhang, 15th Place
Novice Policy (CX) Debate
- AJ Darwin, 9th Place
Varsity Policy (CX) Debate
- Vikas Burugu and Daniel Shi, 1st Place
Varsity Policy (CX) Debate Individual
- Vikas Burugu, 11th Place
- Daniel Shi, 19th Place
Varsity Public Forum (PF) Debate
- Krishna Shamanna, 1st Place
- Frank Lai, 3rd Place
- Sophia Wang, 13th Place
- Mika Freund, 14th Place
- Sruthi Ramaswamy, 16th Place
